Following in the steps of Amazon.com, the website has decided to resort to an "old-fashioned" selling method because it has found that US consumers prefer to use catalogues for their Christmas shopping.
The company will distribute 23m catalogues as inserts in 55 different newspapers. eBay has stressed that although it does not have control over the items put up for auction, the trading of 6.5m items at any time online will be large enough to allow customers to find what they are looking for.
Gifts advertised will include the Sony PlayStation2 and Harry Potter merchandise.
eBay has had a good year, having been able to survive the dotcom slowdown better than most sites. It has increased its advertising spend for the fourth quarter from £18.3m to £28.2m in the past year.
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