The campaign, which runs through July 7, aims to engage Australians as they commute to and from work, with messages on billboards at train stations, street furniture, bus interiors, ads in the free commuter newspaper mX, and mobile display advertising. This is complemented by mobile paid search and display advertising to capture people’s attention when they’re commuting, as well as ads on ebay.com.au, email marketing, PR, and content and promotions across eBay Australia’s social media properties, including facebook.com/eBay.com.au.

In developing the creative approach and selecting the channels and media strategy for commuters, the Australian team listened and responded to customers, said Suz Mitchell, head of Integrated Marketing.

“It’s been exciting to work with the entire marketing team to translate the ‘shop when inspiration strikes’ theme through all channels in a way that makes sense to customers, based on how they consume their media,” Mitchell said.

Queensland resident Paul Rammers has a very special car for sale and it’s only available via eBay.

Rammers is selling a hand-built Holden Monaro HRT 427, a concept car born out of a collaboration between Holden and HSV.

The supercar, which features a 7-litre V8 racing engine that’s based on the Le Mans-winning C5R Corvette, is only one of two ever produced. The other is permanently housed in the Holden Museum in Melbourne — so driving it is off-limits.

Rammers listed the vehicle for sale on ebay.com.au in order to expose this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to a global audience of potential buyers. He will not sell for less than $1 million.

Potential buyers can place a bid or buy it now. The bidding period ends on 28 March 28, 2013 just before 7 p.m. AEST — so we’re only eight days away from knowing if the Holden Monaro HRT 427 will be one of the cars that is sold every 6 minutes on ebay.com.au.

Check out this video from our team down under for the full story.

Check out the roadshow wrap-up, below.

DBO Wrap Video v04.0 from Peter Crocker on Vimeo.

Watch highlights:

You can read the full Secure Insights report by downloading the PDF.

Along with my colleagues here and in Australia, we talked with the reporter about this story and said several times that “we have no plans to implement PayPal-only in the US”. This quote didn’t make it into the story, which is too bad because it seemed pretty clear what we meant. But in all fairness, this type of language led to a lot of questioning comments on Ink last month.

The result today was an AP story that made it “unclear whether eBay will institute a similar policy in the United States and other countries.”

While we wish the AP had listened to us and printed the quote, I’ll clarify what we meant here:

In the US, we are not mulling, planning, or otherwise seriously considering a move to PayPal-only. There are US market-specific reasons why PayPal-only is something we simply cannot do in the US.

We were offered the chance by the AP to be categorical on this subject, and we declined to do so. We declined because there are no plans, but categorical statements have a tendency to cause headaches down the road, particularly as we evaluate how to move forward in other markets and as conditions could shift in the US.

As I said in the article, we will take what we learn in Australia with PayPal-only and apply it accordingly. What perhaps didn’t come across as well is that we will apply those lessons differently in different markets.

We are a global company that has been successful, in part, because we allow each market to operate in a way that is both uniquely eBay and uniquely local, and we will continue to do so.

Thanks,
Usher Lieberman
Corporate Communications

In a nut shell, the changes are as follows:

1. All items (with the exception of cars, motorcycles, aircraft, boats, caravans, trailers, commercial trucks, services, real estate and businesses for sale) listed for sale on eBay.com.au on or after May 21, 2008 will be required to offer PayPal as one of the payment methods.

2. All items appearing on eBay.com.au as of June 17, 2008 will be required to be paid for using:
a) PayPal (or)
b) paid for when picking up the item (or)
c) Visa/Mastercard transaction via PayPal

3. No other payments will be permitted

4. PayPal Buyer Protection will increase to a maximum of $20,000 (including postage) for eligible items purchased on or after June 17, 2008.

There were two primary reasons given for the changes:

1. The changes will make buying on eBay.com.au even safer with the $20K PayPal Buyer Protection. Plus, eBay data (note to self: how do I get my hands on this data?) shows that in 2007 people who paid with PayPal were four times less likely to enter a dispute than people who paid with bank deposit.

2. The changes will make selling more reliable with new PayPal Seller Protection. Again, eBay data was cited to have shown that in 2007 sellers who accepted PayPal were almost half as likely to experience an unpaid item than sellers who did not accept PayPal.

At face value, I think that people prefer having a choice and implementing this takes a number of existing choices away. However, one of our top priorities is to ensure that transactions on eBay are trouble-free and I know we don’t feel comfortable endorsing payment methods that result in a higher chance of a dispute and this does address that.

I’ve been told that there are no plans to go to a PayPal-only model for eBay in other markets – US included.