In a new column profiling eBay’s journey from turnaround candidate to ecommerce leader, writer Simone Baribeau notes that eBay’s efforts over the past three years to reinvent itself as an innovative, technology-driven company have paid off. Thanks to improved search engines, better communication with buyers and sellers about policy changes, and a more attractive interface, the site has been able to declare “victory” as a “fast growing e-commerce tool.”

More importantly, eBay has big plans for 2013. As Baribeau notes:

The company is “striving” to double its users in the next three to five years, as more people across the world gain Internet access.

It’s unveiling Cassini, a new search engine that will look through text, in addition to the headlines searched by the current system, as early as next year.

It’s poised to take on Amazon’s personalized recommendations, recently launching a Pinterest-like feed that’ll make it easy for users to browse through stuff eBay thinks they may like, rather than to just go to the site when they know what they want to buy.

And if you think Amazon’s delivery is fast, eBay’s testing out an even faster system in San Francisco and New York, where people can get same-day delivery service from brick and mortar stores, including Target, often within an hour.

|“We’re moving. We’re experimenting. We’re innovating,” Devin Wenig, president eBay Global Marketplaces said. “We’ve only just started.”

Image from Fast Company.