When eBay acquired Skype, it was unable to integrate the service into its eBay and PayPal ecommerce offerings and it failed to generate any synergies. eBay does not appear to be having that problem with the ecommerce platform Magento it acquired last year.
Merchants were already offering PayPal on their Magento-powered stores, and in December, PayPal made its commerce identity system PayPal Access available to Magento Go merchants.
eBay made a more decisive move this week when its own ProStores web-hosting service sent a letter to merchants inviting them to a webinar demonstrating Magento Go.
According to a merchant who forwarded the email invitation he received, ProStores is trying to get him to upgrade his ProStores store to Magento. “I know they are both owned by eBay but I have been a customer for over 5 years,” he said. “Why would they want me to switch over when I am already a paying customer of Prostores?”
Despite launching a new version of ProStores on Tuesday (v. 10.3.3), it wrote to merchants extolling the virtues of Magento Go. The letter to ProStores merchants read:
“At ProStores, we understand the success of your business depends on your ability to stay competitive and meet the needs of your customers. We also understand that one solution may not meet all merchants’ need so with the help of X.commerce, an eBay, Inc. company, we’re expanding our storefront solutions by investing in the fasting growing online eCommerce platform in the world called Magento. Magento is trusted by some of the world’s leading brands and serves more than 110,000 businesses worldwide and is now part of the eBay Inc. family of technology companies.”
The letter then went on to describe Magento Go’s strengths including broader merchandising features; access to improved search-engine-optimization tools; and improved web site design via a content management system designed to save merchants valuable time.
The Magento webinar for ProStores merchants takes place today, March 1st, at 10 am PST. Also see last year’s blog post, How Committed Is eBay to ProStores.
