Sanook! to take over eBay's site

The US-based worldwide e-marketing group eBay is to close its www.ebay.co.th website and hand over its Thailand businesses to Sanook.com.
In a joint announcement in Bangkok yesterday, eBay and Sanook! said the old website would cease operations when a new website, to be run and wholly owned by Sanook!, is up and running in the next five to seven months. Although the specific web address was not revealed, the new e-commerce website will be co-branded as Sanook!eBay, they said.
"We wouldn't categorise it [closing our website] as failure," said Dan Neary, eBay's regional vice president for emerging markets. "It's normal that we started it as a promotional site, but we realise that Sanook! understands the local market." Ebay.co.th was opened last year.
Sanook Online's chief executive Torboon Puangmaha said Sanook! would set up a wholly owned subsidiary to handle the new e-commerce business and would share revenue with eBay.
Through the Sanook!eBay site, Thai small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and village-level Otop enterprises will be able to sell their products to the world, he said.
Users who want to trade on eBay.com will be able to conduct their transactions on the Thai-language Sanook!eBay site which will automatically link orders to the global site.
However, Torboon said he still has to figure out how to avoid Thai sellers having to paying double fees on both sites. "However, users won't suffer," he said.
Both eBay.com and Sanook! will have links from their main pages to the Sanook!eBay website. Sanook will also cease its Auction page and redirect traffic to the new site.
Torboon said eBay was attracted to a deal with Sanook! because of the latter's web traffic, with more than one million visitors every day.
Sanook is wholly owned by MIH, a multimedia company headquartered in South Africa. However, the company is entirely managed by Thai staff.
Ebay's Neary said Thais are one of the most active selling groups on eBay, with items such as jewellery and cloth selling on the site every minute, thanks to Thailand's low production costs.
Torboon said Sanook!eBay would combine into one website its global trade, which is currently conducted on eBay, and domestic trade, which is currently undertaken on Sanook Auctions websites.
"Why separate the market? Why aren't those who are selling to the world, also selling to the Thai market? We will integrate both markets under a single platform, using the same tools," he said.
According to the global research firm IDC, Thailand has more than 16 million Internet users - a figure that is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 25 per cent through 2009.
Pichaya Changsorn
The Nation