Personal recommendations have always been a part of ecommerce, but there has been little innovation since Amazon introduced retail and product personalization 10 years ago. But with the increasing mountains of data at digital retailers’ fingertips, ecommerce is about to get even more personal.

The fact is that right now there is little iteration from personalized ecommerce beyond what is taking place on Amazon. So you’ll see suggestions of what other shoppers who bought a certain item also purchased, or recommendations to similar items to what you have purchased, but there is a whole world of social data, and even more-in-depth purchase data that can be mined by retailers to help increase sales.

Kleiner Perkins partner Aileen Lee agrees with me, “In the future, the best  retail sites will know you much better and show you things that are much more relevant.” Lee has helped lead investments in a number of e-commerce companies including Offermatic, One Kings Lane, Plum District, Rent the Runway, and Trendyol and held operating roles at The Gap and North Face.

“We are just at the beginning of a revolution of e-commerce, and existing retailers are going to have to get better at personalizing the experience for consumers,” Lee says.

“Personalization was really important in enabling Amazon to differentiate itself and grow in past ten years,” David Selinger, CEO and co-founder of RichRelevance. Selinger also was Amazon’s Manager, Consumer Behavior Research and helped build some of the site’s personalization features a number of years ago. “Personalization will be the differentiating factor in e-commerce and digital commerce going forward, especially for multichannel retailers and new entrants online.”

Amazon and Netflix represent the first wave of personalization. I believe that we are going to enter into the next wave of a more personalized e-commerce experience as retailers and e-commerce sites move towards mining data to improve sales and conversions.

It’s highly likely that you have helped boost Amazon and Netflix’s conversion rates on movies, books, or other products thanks to personalized suggestions of items that you may like based on your previous purchase data, other consumers’ purchase history and more. In fact, it’s so seamlessly baked into the user experience for both companies, that I tend to not even notice how impactful personalization is on what I purchase.

That’s not to say that Amazon is the only retailer experimenting with personalization. eBay has also been personalizing the marketplace experience with recommendations of similarly viewed or bought items for some time, and is looking to expand personalization efforts with PayPal. And with the recent acquisition of Hunch, we know eBay is going to ramp up data mining.

Recently, I started to receive emails from Gilt Groupe that suggested similar earring to like those those I had added to my wait-list on the e-commerce site. The company also sends personalized email notifications on sales that are tailored to each customer. Gilt, who declined to comment for this piece, seems to realize that personalization is going to be a key product driver for the site in the future. And brick and mortar retailers like Saks Fifth Avenue, and many others are also starting to jump on the personalized email bandwagon.

The Challenges

The best way begin understanding the opportunity of personalization in the future is to realize the immense challenge that retailers face when approaching personalization. As DJ Patil, Data Scientist in Residence at Greylock Partners, explains, “When you go to Nordstrom you have a shopping assistant helps direct you, basically says ‘I’m here to help, what do you need and here’s where to find this.’ No online retailer has quite nailed that,” he explains.

For most retailers, the toughest hurdle is to have enough data on an individual to actually help personalize the experience. For the majority of buyers who purchase from a specific site once every few months, or even less frequently, a retailer may have no real sense of direction on how to present similar products.

Getting these data points is the biggest challenge that retailers face. But retailers do have significant data for the small amount of regular, routine customers for an e-commerce site, including clicks, purchase history, shopping cart information, shares and Likes, and more. Retailers face challenges on how to store and organize this data, and then turn this into personal recommendations

And data comes in various forms. There’s implicit data (which is gained from your everyday actions on a retailer’s site) and explicit data (which you offer to sites via surveys or quizzes). While retailers are doing more with the implicit data (i.e. reminding you when you left items in your shopping cart); no one has yet mastered the art of capturing that precious explicit data.

Google’s Boutiques.com tried its hand at this, as a search engine and fashion site which allowed users to receive personalized clothes and accessory recommendations based on preferences and actions. But Google subsequently shut the portal down last September.

Asking for users to fill out surveys of what they love or like perhaps isn’t the ticket to drawing explicit data, such as brands you love, colors, styles and more. As Patil explains, retailers who ask for this information need to present this as more of a conversation as opposed to replicating the feel of a doctor’s appointment where you are filling out your life history via forms.

Getting these signals from consumers is very difficult from a UI and user experience stand point, he says. His advice to retailers is to find a way to replicate how a store owner or shop keeper would engage you in a conversation when walking into a store and looking for something open-ended, such as a birthday gift. One way to do this is to present a personalized item suggestion but ask the consumer (in a Pandora-like fashion) if the recommendation sucks and how they can make the shopper’s life better “People want to help the system and love to correct things,” Patil says.

And similar to Pandora, people become more invested in a platform that knows their preferences and will be more likely to return.

There’s also the issue of finding the balance between providing serendipity in terms of discovery and personalization. Retailers still want their sites to be this Pandora’s box of discovering items, literally, but personalization can cut down on this discovery process. So retailers need to both anticipate what consumers may want to purchase on the site but also provide items that consumers will be able to feel like they ‘discovered’ on the site.

Patil draws an interesting comparison with how grocery stores have been able to structure their layouts to provide serendipity and useful discovery. “When you go to the supermarket, the stores know you are definitely going to milk aisle, so they often put it in the back of the store, so you can find serendipitous stuff on the way. Online retailers need to replicate that on e-commerce sites.” In the end, the goal is to be able to deliver personalization without being predictable.

At a macro level, retailers also face challenges in finding talent to sort this big data. The difference between doing data personalization well are radical shifts financially for retailers, Selinger explains. The engineers who are able to parse these massive amounts of data are hard to come by, and expensive.

Social

Social data (i.e. the Facebook Likes of products, what products people are recommending on Facebook or Twitter) is going to be a big part of personalization for retailers in the future. Already plenty of retailers are using Facebook social plugins and Connect integrations to leverage Facebook data to show visitors what friends bought or shared, what products relate to their Likes, and which friends they might want to invite.

The problem with this data is that much of it is unstructured, and there is really no one who has effectively nailed social personalization in the commerce arena the way Amazon was able to do with data from purchase behavior. Blippy attempted to socialize purchases, but it failed. Amazon also allows you to connect to Facebook to access your friends’ Likes and recommendations but I find this UI to be clunky, and not very useful.

Selinger thinks that mining social data for ecommerce may lose steam before it takes off, drawing the comparison to email. “In 2007, if you were to walk into VC’s office with an idea about ecommerce and email, you would have been sent out the door,” Selinger says. But he explains that while there is an inherent enterprise value in this social data, it will take a long time to take off, similar to the way it took awhile for personalized email and commerce models to enter the market. “When someone figures out how to do it and do it well, it will grow really quickly,” he maintains.

The challenge for retailers is making sense of the Facebook news feed — i.e. streamlining recommendations, attaching brands and tags to this data and then serving this to shoppers in a useful, personalized format. Basically, your social network can become your Consumer Reports.

The challenge for the data mining community, explains Patil, is actually figuring out the intent in much of the unstructured data that is posted about retail products and brands on Facebook. And it’s important to keep in mind that some of this data from Facebook users is private.

This past week, Facebook partnered up with sixty different startups to add their “stories” to Facebook Timeline, through apps that span different verticals from Food, Fashion to Travel. Part of this involved adding new actions (in addition to ‘like’) to Timeline story options. That includes the verbs ‘bought’ and ‘want.’

There is tremendous potential in developers and retailers being able to mine this data from ‘boughts’ and wants’ as opposed to the open-ended ‘like.’ You can see details on what social shopping mall Payvment is doing with the new protocols here, but basically, the ability to add these targeted buttons could be game-changing for social discovery in e-commerce.

Privacy

Echoing Lee’s thoughts, Patil is confident that there will be a new wave of personalization and e-commerce. But without data, there is no personalization. So consumers both on Facebook as well as on retail sites will have to be more willing to give up key data like purchase history, Likes and other social actions, and even location in order to get a more personalized shopping experience on retail sites.

The key will be getting consumers to understand that more data will improve their shopping experience, and making the choice of opting-in a no brainer.

Selinger agrees that privacy is going to be an important issue in the next tranche of personalization innovation. “Now more than ever, consumers are more cognizant of what’s happening with their data,” he says. But what retailers have in the favor is a strong foundation of privacy practices, because these companies have had to protect consumer financial and credit card data for time. Selinger believes that retailers will be very thoughtful about privacy and data sharing going forward.

Perhaps sites like Blippy and Boutiques.com were ahead of their time when it came to consumers willingly handing over the keys to their shopping and payment preferences. I envision a day when there will be an app that reads all of your purchase history via your email account and then serves you recommendations based on this data. There are some companies who are already parsing through receipts in your inbox to organize purchases, so why not take this a step further.

And these personalization strategies that are being adopted by retailers are already trickling down to other kinds of sites beyond e-commerce as well. In the same way that ecommerce sites are trying to maximize sales and profits with this data, content sites are also using social and other data to add relevance to their platforms.

So shoppers, be prepared to give up your data. In the coming year, we’re going to see many more retail sites ramping up data-driven discovery. And e-commerce sites who aren’t thinking about how to mine social and other forms of data are probably going to be left in the dust by the Amazons and Netflix’s of the next wave of personalization.

eBay just reported fourth quarter and fiscal year 2011 earnings today, which were above analysts expectations. eBay posted revenue of $3.4 billion, up 35 percent from the same quarter in 2010. The company reported fourth quarter net income on a GAAP basis of $2.0 billion, or $1.51 per diluted share, and non-GAAP net income of $788.6 million, or $0.60 per diluted share. Net income was up 15 percent to $789 million. Analysts expected earnings per share of $0.57 on revenue of $3.32 billion.

eBay says the year-over-year increase in the fourth quarter GAAP earnings per diluted share was driven primarily by a gain on the sale of the company’s remaining investment in Skype. The year-over-year increase in the fourth quarter non-GAAP earnings per diluted share was driven primarily by strong top-line growth and improved productivity partially offset by a higher tax rate.

For the full year, revenue increased 27% to $11.7 billion, compared to 2010. The company generated net income on a GAAP basis of $3.2 billion, or $2.46 per diluted share, and non-GAAP net income of $2.7 billion, or $2.03 per diluted share.

eBay President and CEO (and interim PayPal president) John Donahoe said this of the quarter: “We had a strong fourth quarter finish to an excellent year, increasing our confidence in our three-year outlook…Across eBay, PayPal, GSI and X.commerce, we have a robust portfolio of global commerce platforms and innovative mobile, local and social commerce technology assets. We are well-positioned to compete in the emerging new retail environment, and to help retailers of all sizes grow and engage their customers anytime, anywhere. We are a different eBay today, no longer just an ecommerce leader but a stronger, more diverse global commerce company shaping the future of shopping and payments.”

The company’s PayPal business continued to be the crown jewel in eBay’s earnings. PayPal ended the year with 106.3 million active registered accounts, a 13% increase year over year. On average, PayPal added a million new accounts every month in 2011.

PayPal revenue for the quarter increased 28% year over year driven primarily by continued merchant and consumer adoption as well as increased penetration on eBay. In the fourth quarter, revenue from PayPal’s international markets exceeded revenue from the U.S. for the first time. PayPal’s net total payment volume (TPV) grew 24% to $33.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011. PayPal brought in $1.2 billion for the quarter, up 29 percent.

The marketplace business also grew in the fourth quarter, up 16 percent year over year to $1.77 billion, due primarily to increased buying and selling on the platform as well as growth from acquisitions. Gross merchandise volume (GMV), excluding vehicles, increased 10 percent to $16.5 billion with sold items up 11% globally year over year. U.S. GMV, excluding vehicles, increased 10 percent year over year. International GMV, excluding vehicles, increased 9 percent year over year, driven primarily by growth in Europe and in Asia. The company’s GSI business contributed $363.6 million in revenue for the fourth quarter.

In terms of expectations, eBay expects net revenues in the range of $3.05 to $3.15 billion with GAAP earnings per diluted share in the range of $0.37 – $0.38 and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share in the range of $0.50 – $0.51 for the first quarter 2012.

For eBay, 2011 was really the year of mobile and local. Via both acquisitions and strategic product launches, the company pushed mobile payments in both its marketplaces and PayPal businesses. PayPal surpassed its expectation of $3.5 billion in mobile payments in 2011, reaching $4 billion for the year. And eBay reached $5 billion in mobile GMV (gross merchandise volume) in 2011.

The company is projecting that eBay would reach $8 billion in mobile GMV in 2012, and PayPal will reach $7 billion in transactions in 2012.

With Donahoe at the helm of both eBay and PayPal, it should be interesting to see how 2012 shapes up for the e-commerce giant. We know that PayPal is debuting an in-store payments technology both via mobile and point of sale systems that is currently being tested on a ‘friends and family’ basis at Home Depot. And we could also see a new PayPal CEO as well.

We’ll be covering the earnings call below, so stay tuned.

EARNINGS CALL:

Donahoe says that the company has a strong fourth quarter. “2011 marked an inflection point for shopping; Online and offline retail are rapidly blending into a seamless multichannel world.”

PayPal is generating excitement about it’s in-store offerings. For retailers, this will give them opportunities to not only engage consumers at checkout but throughout the shopping experience. We will be launching a pilot to 50 Home Depot Stores in San Francisco this week.

Donahoe: We’ve added more new users to eBay in the fourth quarter than we’ve had in the past few years.

In light of Scott Thompson’s recent departure, Donahoe says the PayPal management team has never been stronger. He says Thompson’s departure was a surprise, but he wishes him well. “I feel better about this leadership team than any time in the company’s history.”

At his CES keynote yesterday evening, eBay CEO (and new interim PayPal CEO) John Donahoe revealed a number of new mobile payments forecasts for both eBay and PayPal. As we heard from PayPal VP David Marcus a few days ago, PayPal surpassed its expectation of $3.5 billion in mobile payments in 2011, reaching $4 billion for the year. Donahoe said in his keynote that eBay reached $5 billion in mobile GMV (gross merchandise volume) in 2011, doubling 2010′s GMV.

He also projected yesterday that eBay would reach $8 billion in mobile GMV in 2012, and PayPal will reach $7 billion in transactions in 2012. eBay Mobile currently has more than 65 million downloads of eBay’s mobile applications across platforms. And more than 890,000 new eBay shoppers made their first eBay purchase through the company’s mobile apps in 2011, a 113% increase year over year.

Donahoe also announced a new strategic partner in eBay’s RedLaser barcode scanning app—Best Buy. The app was updated last fall to include integration from PayPal and Milo to give users the ability to buy now for either in-store pick-up or home delivery later. Yesterday, Best Buy was revealed at as RedLaser’s newest partner (joining Toys R Us).

As online retail sales continue to soar, brick and mortar stores are seeing margins dissipate. Online holiday sales are expected to grow 15 percent to $37.6 billion this season while retail sales in physical stores are only expected to increase by 3.8 percent to $469.1 billion. Best Buy recently reported a 29 percent drop in profits because of discounts and sales of top grossing electronics. The fact is that the electronics retailer was probably forced into offering deeply discounted deals in order to compete with e-commerce giant Amazon. And it doesn’t help that Amazon is now offering discounts to consumers on any product purchased via its price comparison mobile app, another huge blow to physical retailers.

Brick and mortar retailers need to figure out a way to compete with Amazon and other e-commerce giants that doesn’t eat into margins. Deals and coupons simply aren’t enought. And as former Apple retail chief Ron Johnson has said, retail isn’t broken, stores are. So how are retail stores going to survive? While mobile may be the technology e-commerce companies are using to jab physical stores, it is also the technology that may save these stores. Personalization and data are the two key factors that could save retail stores; and the vehicle by which these technologies can be utilized is via the mobile phone.

Why Mobile?

2011 has been pegged as the year of mobile shopping by both technology companies and retailers. Now more than ever consumers are carrying around phones that enable them to access apps, discounts, price comparison information, payments mechanisms and more. comScore recently reported that two-thirds of all smartphone owners performed some sort of shopping activity on their phones, including comparing products and prices, searching for coupons, taking product pictures or locating a retail store.

In fact, slightly more than one in three purchasers used their smartphone to make a purchase while in a store. When they enter retail stores, these consumers are carrying their mobile phones and using these devices.

E-commerce companies have been quick to capitalize on this trend while brick and mortar retailers have not caught on in quite the same way. As mentioned above, Amazon is incentivizing customers to use its PriceCheck mobile app. Customers can walk into a brick-and-mortar retailer, use the app to scan the barcodes of a desired product, and access Amazon’s prices for that product. More often than not, Amazon’s prices are lower, and if a customer places the item into the app’s virtual basket, a 5% discount will be applied to the product within 24 hours. Price Check app users can use the discount on up to three products.

Simply offering coupons aren’t going to be able to combat Amazon’s tactics, because not only are these deals going to eat into retailer margins but these incentives can’t necessarily bring shopper back to a store repeatedly.

Brick and mortar stores need to figure out not only how to drive traffic, but also how to increase the purchase amount and conversion rates, create loyalty and return customers and more.

Cyriac Roeding, founder of location-based mobile shopping app Shopkick believes that the mobile phone is key to the future of commerce for stores. In case you aren’t familiar, Shopkick automatically recognizes when someone with the free Android or iPhone app on their phone walks into a participating store. Once a Shopkick Signal is detected, the app delivers reward points called “kickbucks” to the user for walking into a retail store, trying on clothes, scanning a barcode and other actions. These rewards can be used towards purchases.

Rodeing says that the role of the physical store will change in the future. What online stores cannot offer (which brick and mortar outlets need to realize) is the one-on-one personalization and personal treatment that a physical store with employees can. And in-store shopping brings immediate gratification because a customer can take home the item with them as soon as the purchase is complete.

And mobile is how you bring personalization back to the in-store purchase experience. The challenge, he explains, is to make this experience worth the consumer’s time and money.

eBay is also trying to help physical retailers drive traffic into stores via its Red Laser barcode scanning apps, which now integrate in-store listings, prices and availability from Milo. As eBay’s Jack Abraham (who founded Milo) says, brick and mortar retailers need to be where their customers are, and that decision-making is now happening on phones.

“There are clearly companies that are positioning themselves as destroying brick and mortar retailers but we’re positioning ourselves to be an ally for the retailers,” he says. eBay recently launched a new campaign, where consumers who spend $100 at Toys “R” Us, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Aeropostale using PayPal, will get a $10 voucher to spend in store.

How To Personalize The Experience: Data!

How brick and mortar stores are going to be able to personalize and make the in-store shopping experience unique is through data, in my opinion. It’s no longer about creating a mobile web site or offering coupons; the experience centralizes around making customers feel as if they are being treated like a VIP just by walking into a store. And how brick and mortar stores are going to do that is the same way Amazon was able to create a business out of personalized e-commerce.

Some retailers are attempting to use video and heatmaps to try to see how people shop, what they are buying and more. But this data is limiting because while stores can figure out what is working when it comes to placement, advertising, and marketing of products in-store, retailers still don’t know who is buying and how to get them to return.

Personalization really gets interesting with transaction data. Shopkick recently teamed up with Visa to allow consumers a way to receive rewards points for retailers at the point of sale when they use their Visa credit cards. This is part of closing the redemption loop. The redemption loop starts when a consumer sees an ad or an offer for a merchant, and is completed when the consumer makes a purchase and that purchase can be tracked back to the offer. Thus far startups, tech companies and credit card companies have started to use transaction data as a way to close the redemption loop and drive future purchases but this is relatively new to brick and mortar retailers.

With the Shopkick deal, brick and mortar retailers could see what items a consumer purchased and deliver discounts, and special offers based on purchase behavior. And this can be delivered via the mobile phone.

Of course, this would all have to be an opt-in experience for shoppers considering the privacy implications. But many consumers use the personalized experience of Amazon when buying books, electronics and others items, so why not replicate this in the physical world?

This means more partnerships with credit card companies like Visa, MasterCard and American Express. Online payments giant PayPal also sees this as a huge opportunity for physical stores. PayPal announced an in-store payments technology both via mobile and point of sale systems that is currently being tested on a ‘friends and family’ basis in a national retailer in two markets.

The opt-in offering will include location-based offers, making payments accessible from any device and offering more payments flexibility to customers after they’ve checked out. Users will have the ability to access realtime store inventory, receive in-store offers, and real-time location-based advertising from stores. While exact details are still unclear, it sounds like PayPal will use location and transaction data to help in-store retailers improve the experience for consumers.

PayPal is partnering with a at least 20 known top-tier retailers, which will be unveiled in 2012. We hear about the initial retailer as soon as this year.

PayPal’s Anuj Nayar tells me candidly that retailers are desperate for this offering. “The fact is that most retailers have no idea about customers until they are leaving the store and that comes down to data.” He says PayPal is working with in-store retailers to create a suite of tools and technologies that help use technologies to level the playing field when it comes to data.

One thing that is clear is that retailers need to jump on the mobile, personalization and data bandwagon very soon. Online retailers are only getting more aggressive (i.e. Amazon), and it’s only a matter of time before online retailers start to ramp up their existing personalization offers even more.

Roeding says that physical retailers who doesn’t focus on mobile in the next six months are going to face a major problem in the next year. But it goes beyond just created a dedicated site and mobile app. Brick and mortar retailers need to find a way to be in as many mobile applications as possible, such as ShopKick, PayPal, and eBay, where potential customers are deciding what to buy and where.

Abraham echoes these thoughts, explaining that retailers need to be part of search results, especially in mobile search results. “If they don’t, they risk getting lost in the age of the post-pc era,” he says. eBay is building out its own predictive data capabilities with the recent acquisition of Hunch, and we can expect more data-focused features to be rolled out soon.

As for which brick and mortar retailer is going to be the first catch on the mobile and data wave when it comes to in-store shopping, my bets are on Wal-mart. The retailer has been particularly aggressive on the technology front, buying social and mobile ad targeting company OneRiot, and social media startup Kosmix. Wal-mart is already experimenting with a number of in-store mobile services, including things like NFC, barcode scanning and in-store geo-fencing.

There’s no doubt that 2012 could be a pivotal year for brick and mortar stores. But they need to act fast and start providing a unique experience for customers or risk being left in the dust by Amazon.

It’s no secret that eBay is pushing mobile in a big way. Especially during this holiday shopping season, the e-commerce giant is seeing record mobile engagement. And today, eBay is announcing that more than 1 million listings are now made every week through eBay mobile.

That means that now more than ever, eBay’s marketplace sellers are uploading items they want to sell via mobile devices. Last year, eBay consolidated its buying and selling iPhone apps, allowing seller to quickly take photos of items and post them on eBay from the same app that buyers browser items on.

eBay is also publishing a new video series, called eBay MoneyMakers, which will feature families who turned to eBay to make money in tough economic situations.

Online commerce giant eBay this morning ran a Cyber Monday deal for a white Apple iPad 2 WiFi 16GB, selling the popular tablet for $449 or exactly $50 off the MSRP (+ free shipping). Turns out a lot of people figured that was a great deal.

And they were right, too. After all, Apple only discounted the iPad 2 16GB with $41 on Black Friday, so you would indeed have been better off waiting until today and buying it on eBay … if you could get your hands on it quickly enough.

An eBay rep tells me that the iPad 2 was on sale for a mere two hours before it was sold out. At that price, people picked up four iPad 2 tablets per minute (or about 480 in total) during that time.

There were other deals on eBay that were worth breaking out your wallet for. The company sold a Microsoft Xbox 360 250GB Kinect Bundle for $259.99 – all 1,500 of those on sale were gone in 20 minutes (or 75 bundles sold per minute).

eBay also sold a HP 3105m laptop for $199.99, and sold nearly three units per minute to sell out the notebook PC in just over three hours.

It also knocked a whopping 58 percent off a RIM BlackBerry PlayBook 32GB ($249), but it hasn’t sold out yet today – which I guess says a lot more about the tablet than it does about eBay.

As we heard earlier today, Thanksgiving proved to be a lucrative day for online retailers. IBM reported online Thanksgiving 2011 sales were up 39 percent over Thanksgiving 2010, with mobile shopping on the rise. eBay and PayPal are seeing similar trends. PayPal Mobile just announced a 511 percent increase in global mobile payment volume when compared to Thanksgiving 2010.

On Thanksgiving in the U.S., consumers shopped on mobile via PayPal most frequently between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. PST. Around the world, consumers shopped on mobile most frequently between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. PST.

There was a more than three-fold (350 percent) increase in the number of global customers shopping through PayPal mobile on Thanksgiving 2011 compared to last year. These shoppers were mainly located in New York, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago.

eBay says that the amount shoppers in the U.S. that bought and spent via eBay Mobile more than doubled this Thanksgiving over last year. GSI Commerce saw a more than three-fold (345 percent) increase in U.S. mobile sales this Thanksgiving compared to 2010. And Searches through the local product listings platform Milo increased 557 percent percent over Thanksgiving Day 2010.

For eBay, the busiest eBay Mobile shopping hour on Thanksgiving was between 6 and 7 p.m. PST. The five most popular categories shopped via eBay Mobile, excluding vehicles (by number of sold items) were Clothing, Shoes & Accessories; Cell Phones & PDAs; Jewelry & Watches; Collectibles and Toys & Hobbies.

In electronics, the top purchases items yesterday were iPhone Accessories, the black Apple iPhone 4 (16GB), and the Apple iPod Touch 4th Generation (8GB).

The dramatic rise in payment volume via mobile phones isn’t particularly surprising considering all the hype around mobile shopping this holiday season. But a 500 percent increase in payment volume for PayPal is still impressive for mobile shopping and we haven’t even seen the full numbers for Black Friday or Cyber Monday yet.

So far, things look positive for Black Friday, eBay says that as of 11 a.m. PST, PayPal is already seeing a more than six-fold increase (538 percent) in global mobile payment volume on Black Friday 2011 compared to the same time period on Black Friday 2010.

According to IBM, the number of consumers using a mobile device on Black Friday to visit a retailer’s site is holding firm at 17.37 percent and the number of consumers using their mobile device to make a purchase remains is at 9.73 percent. The iPhone currently leads all mobile device traffic at 6.77 percent, followed by Android at 5.37 percent and iPad at 4.6 percent.

Already IBM says that afternoon results show that Black Friday 2011 online sales are 20 percent higher for the same time period over Black Friday 2010. Black Friday 2011 online sales eclipsed Thanksgiving sales at 2:20pm PST this afternoon, says IBM.

Amanda Pires of PayPal tell us that the holiday is proving to be the largest mobile holiday shopping season PayPal and eBay has ever seen. “The retailers that are taking advantage of mobile shopping are going to win. We expect mobile shopping to continue to be strong throughout the holiday season.”

eBay and PayPal are both pushing the term ‘couch commerce,’ in which consumers will be using their tablets and mobile phones from the comfort of their couches to shop this holiday shopping season. eBay is launching a new feature of its iPad app, which should help take couch commerce to another level.

A new “Watch with eBay” tab has been added to the e-commerce giant’s iPad app that allows users to shop a selection of items on the marketplace related to
what they are currently watching on TV.

Users tap “Watch with eBay” and type in their zip code, cable provider, channel and the program they are currently watching; and using show and event-specific key word searches, the app will surface relevant merchandise from the more than 200 million listings available on the eBay marketplace.

eBay says this is just the beginning. The company plans to partner with networks, stations, cable providers and studio to identify products featured in each scene of a movie or show.

eBay believes there’s huge potential in blending couch commerce with TV content. According to the company, 86 percent of mobile internet users are using their devices while watching TV. A quarter of these users are browsing content related to what they are watching.

In fact, eBay and PayPal are predicting the first mobile shopping spike this holiday season will take place after dinner on Thanksgiving Day, when people will head for the couch, armed with their smartphones and tablets.

Online holiday shopping reached record levels in 2010. And e-commerce spending is up this year. All signs point to consumers spending even more online this holiday season. I sat down with executives from Google, eBay, PayPal and ShopKick to discuss the trends that are expected to emerge in the e-commerce space over the next few months.  They center around mobile, tablets, and deals.

PayPal has more than doubled its mobile payments volume since the 2010 holiday shopping season, and we haven’t even hit the thick of this year’s rush. eBay is projecting $5 billion in mobile payments volume in 2010 and this number could increase in the next few months. And Google projects that 15 percent of total search on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving and one of the biggest shopping days of the year) will come from mobile devices. Tablet devices are now a part of the online shopping experience and retailers are taking note. Clearly, all signs point to the fact that this could be the breakout year for mobile shopping.

Mobile, Mobile, Mobile

All of the companies I spoke to unanimously agreed that this would be the year of mobile for the holiday shopping season. Steve Yankovich, head of eBay’s mobile business operations and development, says he expects this to be the biggest year for mobile sales for eBay yet. eBay has said that the company expects to see $5 billion in gross merchandise volume in 2011, and this will be partly buoyed by a strong mobile presence in November and December.

PayPal’s Senior Director for Mobile, Laura Chambers, echoes Yankovich’s forecasts and says that merchants are even preparing for the onslaught of traffic to their mobile sites. A number of big retailers, such as Armani Exchange, Guess and The Limited have recently put PayPal’s mobile express checkout as an option for payments on their mobile sites as a way to help the conversion process. “We are seeing strong investments by online retailers for mobile shopping this year,” she says.

Chambers says that last year, the peak day for mobile payments for PayPal was December 12, with $4.7 million in mobile payments volume. Now PayPal is seeing $10 million in mobile payments per day, and we haven’t even officially hit the holiday shopping period. Clearly, the mobile payments numbers could even triple from last year to this year.

While many consumers may shop on mobile for their holiday purchases, the usage of product search, barcode scanning, and other informative apps will also play a big part in this year’s mobile shopping. eBay’s RedLaser barcode scanning apps have seen scans go up 50 percent over the past year. If you aren’t familiar with how it works, RedLaser will scan the barcode of a physical product and show you where you can buy it on eBay’s properties and where it is available in local store locations around you (via Milo) and for how much. The app has been updated with PayPal functionality so that users can actually buy the product directly from the app.

Another shopping app developer who has high hopes for mobile this holiday season is ShopKick. Co-founder Cyriac Roeding says that this year will be the year of mobile for physical shopping. For background, Shopkick automatically recognizes when someone with the free Android or iPhone app on their phone walks into a store. Once a Shopkick Signal is detected, the app delivers reward points called “kickbucks” to the user for walking into a retail store, trying on clothes, scanning a barcode and other actions. Kickbucks can then be redeemed across all partner stores for gift card rewards or for Facebook Credits. User can also receive special discounts on specific products at partners stores like Macy’s, Best Buy or Target.

Roeding explains that the cell phone is the only interactive platform you carry with you in a physical store, and retailers are looking to use the platform to help drive transactions. Clearly, a mobile rewards app that offers in-store discounts can help do this. “The internet has caused brick and mortar retailers more trouble than benefit over the past fifteen years. Now retailers are catching on to how the internet can help retailers—that’s where mobile comes in.”

Sameer Samat, VP of Product Management for Google Commerce, tells me that the search giant is seeing a growing number of users are making buying decisions using their mobile phone. “We are definitely seeing m-commerce conversions growing and becoming bigger over time,” he says. “But users are also using their mobile phone to search for products and find local availability.”

Samat says that Google has seen a 200 percent growth in mobile product search usage and Google Shopper app downloads over the past year. Shopper, which is available for iOS and Android, allows you to find product prices, reviews, specs, local inventory of products at nearby stores, and more.

As we mentioned above, Google is forecasting that 15 percent of total search on Black Friday. will come from mobile. “There’s no doubt that users are now making buying decisions using their mobile phone,” says Samat. “And we are seeing m-commerce conversions growing and becoming bigger over time.”

Tablets

As tablets have grown to be the go-to browsing device, the iPad, and other devices are also becoming a way to shop. And retailers are catching on to this trend. According to a National Retail Federation study, 20 percent of retailers have invested in tablet device apps this holiday season.

With this in mind, Google debuted Catalogs in August, an app for tablet devices that includes 200 catalogs from major brands including Anthropologie, Bare Escentuals, Bergdorf Goodman, Crate and Barrel, L.L. Bean, Lands’ End, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Pottery Barn, Saks Fifth Avenue, Sephora, Sundance, Tea Collection, Urban Outfitters and Williams-Sonoma.

The app is more than just a browsing experience. When consumers find an item they’d like to purchase, they can tap to find it in a store nearby or tap “Buy on Website” to visit the merchant online.

Google’s Samat says that “the tablet is the ultimate leanback experience and we see that playing a big role in holiday shopping as a replacement for the mail order catalogs you used to browse through.”

PayPal calls it ‘couch commerce’ and believes that tablet commerce will have a record year. PayPal recently reported that consumers who own both a tablet and a smartphone are significantly more likely (63%) to indicate increased overall spending on mobile purchases, versus owners of smartphones only (29%). Owners of both a tablet and a smartphone buy nearly twice as often as those who only have smartphones and more than 40% of dual owners made more than 20 mobile purchases over the past year, compared to only 12% of smartphone-only owners.

Forrester just released a report predicting a 15 percent increase in online shopping sales this year to nearly $60 billion, partly due to the increase in consumer-use of tablet computers for shopping.

Beyond Black Friday And Cyber Monday

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are historically the top-high-grossing online shopping days during the holiday season. But execs expect to see high volumes of online shopping on other days thanks to an increase in mobile shopping and deals.

Yankovitch tells me that eBay expects revenue numbers to be well over numbers that eBay saw last year for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but expects to see more activity at times when people aren’t traditionally shopping.

The day of Thanksgiving is one of those days, says Chambers. Because people will have their phone everywhere (including at the table), consumers are expected to make purchases on the fly, especially on Thanksgiving evening. In fact, PayPal is predicting that after dinner on Thanksgiving Day will be the first mobile shopping spike this holiday season.

Another popular day has been the second Sunday in December, which is one of the last days where people feel confident that items will be shipped in times for the holiday. And Chambers says across the board, Sunday is the biggest day for mobile shopping generally.

Deals

There’s no doubt that deals, coupons and discounts will be a large part of the online holiday shopping experience, especially with the current state of the economy. According to the recent Forrester report, 58 percent of Americans say they are more price-conscious today than they were a year ago and nearly half believe they find better values online.

“I really expect consumers to be deal hunting this season,” explains Chambers. She says that PayPal, which has historically offered special deals for the holiday shopping season, will be bulking up on more consumer deals this holiday season.

Samat says that Google has always seen a spike for queries like deals, coupons, and sales during the holiday time and fully expects to see an increase this year. “The consumer desire for a better deal will help give certain product decision tools a big bump,” he explains. “People may take more time this year to find the best possible price.”

Deals could also include lucrative holiday shipping offers. In 2010, 45 of the top 50 online retailers offered some sort of promotional deal between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, most of which were a type of shipping promotion. And in 2011, Shop.org anticipates that a record 92.5% of online retailers will offer free shipping and not just as a Cyber Monday promotion.

Clearly, there’s plenty of optimism from retailers, and tech companies regarding online spending and shopping this holiday season. And this holiday season is somewhat unique considering the big bet that retailers are making on newer technologies, such as mobile, geo-location, tablets, local product search and more. The big question is how consumers will react to and engage with these technologies over the next several weeks.  It could be a very mobile Christmas.

eBay reported third quarter earnings today, which were in-line with Wall Street expectations. Revenue for the third quarter increased 32% to $3 billion, compared to the same period of 2010. This was actually a record quarter for revenue, says the company. Net income on a GAAP basis was $490.5 million, or $0.37 per diluted share, and non-GAAP net income came in at $628.2 million, or $0.48 per diluted share, up 18 percent from 2010. Analysts expected $0.48 cents per share, and revenue was expected to hit $2.9 billion.

The company’s PayPal business continued to help buoy the company’s earnings. PayPal ended the quarter with 103 million active registered accounts, a 14% increase year over year. PayPal revenue increased 32% year over year driven primarily by increased penetration on eBay as well as continued merchant and consumer adoption. PayPal’s net total payment volume grew 31% to $29.3 billion in the third quarter of 2011 compared to the same period of last year. PayPal had its first billion dollar quarter last quarter but exceeded this, bringing in $1.1 billion in revenue, which is up over 30 percent from 2010. And PayPal expects to generate more than $3.5 billion in mobile TPV in 2011, up from $750 million in 2010.

The company’s Marketplaces business also grew, bringing in $1.7 billion in revenue, which is up 17 percent from the previous year. Gross merchandise volume (GMV) excluding vehicles increased by 16% year over year to $14.7 billion. U.S. GMV excluding vehicles increased 14% year over year, and nternational GMV excluding vehicles increased 18% year over year to $9.1 billion, reflecting solid growth in Europe, continued improved performance in Korea, as well as a positive impact from foreign exchange. eBay expects to generate almost $5 billion in mobile GMV in 2011, more than double mobile GMV in 2010.

The company’s GSI Commerce business, which was acquired earlier this year, contributed $202.6 million in revenue for the third quarter. GSI generated $608 million in global ecommerce (GeC) merchandise sales during the quarter.

The year-over-year increase in third quarter GAAP and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share was driven primarily by strong top-line growth, says eBay, and partially offset by continued investment in strategic initiatives and the impact of acquisitions.

eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe, said in a statement, “Our company reported another strong quarter, with eBay, PayPal and GSI each performing well…Mobile commerce continues to accelerate as consumers change the way they shop and pay. We expect eBay mobile commerce to generate almost $5 billion in merchandise volume this year and PayPal mobile to exceed $3.5 billion in payment volume. Mobile is one way online and offline shopping are blending into a single commerce environment. We are focused on enabling commerce, helping consumers shop anytime, anywhere, and being the commerce partner of choice for retailers of all sizes.”

In the Fourth quarter, eBay expects revenues in the range of $3.2 to $3.35 billion million with GAAP earnings per diluted share in the range of $1.47 – $1.53 and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share in the range of $0.55 – $0.58. GAAP earnings per diluted share will include the gain from eBay’s sale of its remaining equity interest in Skype. For the full year, eBay expects revenue in the range of $11.5 to $11.6 billion with GAAP earnings per diluted share in the range of $2.42 – $2.48 and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share in the range of $1.98 – $2.01.

The company has had a pretty significant few weeks. Last week eBay debuted its brand new developer business tomorrow, X.commerce, which stitched together technologies from eBay, PayPal, Magento and GSI. The company also teamed up with Facebook to integrate the social network’s Open Graph into the Magento and GSI global commerce platforms. PayPal also revealed PayPal Access, a payments identity technology that would allow you to carry your payments identity to various retailers on the web.

Facebook Platform Marketing Chief Katie Burke Mitic just joined eBay’s board. PayPal is also expected to debut a new payments platform for merchants as well as in-store integrations.

EARNINGS CALL

Donahoe says that the company is focused on ‘enabling commerce,’ giving users a seamless experience across channels. “Retail must be technology enabled and consumer-led”

“We are at an inflection point in global commerce,” Donahoe added. “We believe we’ll see more change in how people shop and pay in next 3 years than in the last decade.”

PayPal’s mobile payments are expected to exceed $3.5 billion, five times what it was in 2010. PayPal’s technology will soon be extended to retailer point of sale locations. In Q4 these in-store innovations will be tested on a ‘friends and family’ basis in a national retailer in two markets.

eBay mobile MGV will be more than double from last year, to $5 billion. Consumers are making on average 3 purchases per second via the company’s mobile apps.

Mobile payments is a fundamentally risky thing, says the company, but PayPal is going to provide a great mobile payments solution that is secure.

Today, at eBay’s new developer conference, Innovate, CEO John Donahoe told reporters that the company plans to roll out image-recognition technology for its mobile offerings by the end of the year. Yes, that’s right. Images, get ready to be recognized.

While Donahoe did not specify which of eBay’s apps would benefit from this technology, as its suite of mobile apps is not exactly pushing into the millions, we’re hoping that most of them will make the cut. The image recognition integration will allow users of eBay’s mobile apps to snap photos of items they see in the real world on their mobile phones, at which point the apps will then match the photo with similar products currently on sale on eBay.com. This will be a huge addition for the eCommerce giant: Point, click, upload, and find the product you desire. Via image search.

According to the AP, eBay’s fashion section already offers a comparable feature that enables users to check out similar products to what they’re currently searching for on the site.

If this sounds familiar, you may be a user of Google Goggles, the magic app in which a user simply opens said app, captures the objects or text images they want to search for, and lets Google do the rest. Granted, Google Goggles isn’t perfect for every search. Looking for plants, cars, furniture, or apparel? Not so good. Which is why image recognition on eBay apps will do quite nicely.

Or, hey, if you’re lazy, you can always just drag an image into the Google search bar and let the search engine scramble to figure out just what it is. Or, perhaps you’re looking for wine? Talk to Vivino.

“We’re at an inflection point”, eBay CEO John Donahoe said from the stage at Innovate, eBay’s brand new developer conference that launched today in San Francisco. “We’ll see more change in how consumers shop and pay in the next three years than we’ve seen in the last 15 years”.

Donahoe’s prediction for the future came as context for giving a more complete introduction today to X.commerce, the platform formed by eBay and its nest eggs PayPal, Magento and GSI — designed to create a robust, full-service and “open” eCommerce solution. The eCommerce solution “to rule them all”, one might say.

But the real kicker is that, as Leena wrote earlier today, what X.commerce really symbolizes is the first instance of eBay creating a business that truly caters to developers. In the past, eBay developers have been divided into the eBay marketplace, PayPal, etc., but now developers have all those technologies in one place, allowing them to create “new shopping and eCommerce experiences based on these interconnected suite of tools”.

One of the more anticipated announcements to come out of Innovate was a partnership between the world’s largest social network and eBay, which will see the latter integrating Facebook’s Open Graph (the tree of connections Facebookers create by sharing and interacting with friends and content on the social network) into its Magento and GSI global commerce platforms.

What does this mean? The partnership will basically give third party developers a bigger voice in the development of social commerce, allowing them to build new social shopping experiences for consumers and retailers, share their ideas, and create personalized apps for buying, selling, and sharing that have Facebook’s social features baked right into them.

While building Facebook’s features into eCommerce offerings may allow them to make shopping more personalized and display friends’ thoughts about products right in their eShops, the truth is that social commerce hasn’t exactly taken off over the last year. Merchants already have the opportunity to set up storefronts on Facebook to sell directly to their customers while they’re networking or surfing a brand’s fan page, but so far sales on the platform haven’t impressed.

It seems that consumers aren’t particularly jazzed about doing their shopping on Facebook — part of which may be due to the novelty of Facebook’s eCommerce or it could simply be a reluctance to embrace new commerce functionality on what is really a platform designed to share pictures and stalk former romances. It also may have something to do with the fact that many consumers are worried that their credit card and personal information is being scooped up by Facebook in the transaction process. Either buyers are redirected to a brand’s own online store, or they buy on Facebook and often have to accept an app request to make a purchase. That app request can give away a bunch of information on the user and it’s really something many consumers are still loathe to do.

Indeed, it’s a result of this that, as VP and General Manager of X.commerce Matthew Mengerink said today, online shopping remains “a very individualistic and lonely experience”. Which is a shame considering the fact that Facebook’s Director of Platform and Mobile Marketing Katie Mitic told the Innovate crowd that shopping is inherently a social activity and that the world is really just beginning to get a taste of “what’s possible with social commerce”.

Of course, to achieve what’s possible with social commerce eBay and Facebook need the developer community to get excited and want to be on board. Yet, as Reuters pointed out, some analysts and eCommerce experts were hoping for a deeper and perhaps more full-featured partnership between the two companies. And Mitic’s announcement was met with little to no applause from the 3,000+ developers and techies on hand.

This could of course be that they were tired, or that the recent changes to Facebook’s platform that took users beyond the “like” button to allowing them to share what they’ve “read” or want to “taste” just don’t sound that enthralling when applied to social commerce. With eBay’s new Facebook integration, developers will now be able to build social commerce apps that allow users to share what products they “buy”, “want”, “own”, or “recommend”. But is this enough to really change the face of social commerce?

Mengerink said that, in the market today, too many shopping apps target the point of sale, but that the real-life process of browsing, discussing what products are appealing or not, and trying different things on, for example, is inherently social, but it doesn’t always involve buying.

“What we’re encouraging developers to think about is to try out the more ‘pre-shopping’ social experience”, he said. Meaning that the process of joining friends at an online store, browsing, sharing, and chattering via enhanced social features is a way to encourage brand recognition, organic word-of-mouth familiarity with products — and is integral to making the online shopping experience more resemblant of offline shopping. And to grow online sales. The question is, of course, whether or not this is truly possible just with “want” and “own” buttons, and just how much these new pre-shopping features can boost a brand’s bottom line.

The virtual shopping experience is a long ways off from one that mimics its offline counterpart, and I’ve yet to be convinced that just because one of my grade school friends interacted with a product on Facebook, which then popped up in my news stream, that I’m more likely to interact with that product and buy it just because of some loose social connection manifesting while I’m in the process of turning off more Facebook sharing features. Yes, it adds to a brand’s network, and if I’m browsing friends’ profiles and see a product I want to learn about before buying, this is a great conversation starter.

What do you think? Is this a win for developers, consumers, eBay, or Facebook (or all of the above)?

Excerpt image courtesy of TechFouzan

eBay, Inc. is set to debut its brand new developer business tomorrow, X.commerce and we have many of the details that the e-commerce giant will be announcing at its annual developer conference. As we’ve written in the past, eBay, PayPal, Magento and GSI will be the pillars of the X.commerce platform, which will feature a “fabric” that stitches the platform together with other partners to create new experiences for retailers and their customers.

PayPal’s director of communications Anuj Nayar tells me that this is the first time eBay has created a business focused on developers as the customers. Previously developers were part of each business, with separate developer experiences for eBay’s marketplace, PayPal and other businesses. Now, developers will get access to all of these technologies in one place, and according to Nayar, will be able to create new shopping and e-commerce experiences based on these interconnected suite of tools.

X.commerce will also be an open ecosystem, with outside partners also integrating their technologies for the developer community. Adobe, Facebook and Kenshoo have all created experiences and APIs for developers to integrate into their applications relating to online shopping, mobile, and local components.

Local product inventory and shopping site Milo, which eBay acquired last year for $75 million is going to be launching an API for developers to integrate local inventory into their own applications. This will be part of the X.commerce platform as well.

eBay-acquired barcode scanning app RedLaser will soon be launching a 3.0 version of its applications which have been integrated with both Milo and PayPal. So you can scan a barcode, and the app will tell you if its available in a local store or on eBay, and let you pay for it (either in the store or on eBay) in the app via PayPal.

eBay also acquired Magento earlier this year for over $180 million. Magento’s open source software basically enables merchants and brands to create online storefronts and have a decent amount of control over the look, content, SEO, digital marketing and functionality of their online storefronts. Tomorrow, eBay will announce that Magento, via the X.commerce platform, will be launching an app store for Magento extensions. Developers can create applications on top of Magento, and retailers can use this functionality in their online storefronts via the app store. It’s similar in theory to the Salesforce App Exchange, but for online retailers.

In my opinion, one of the biggest products that will be debuted tomorrow is a new collaboration between PayPal and X.commerce called PayPal Access. Basically, PayPal Access is a payments identity technology that would allow you to carry your payments identity to various retailers on the web. So instead of signing up with a specific retailer’s credential’s on a site, you would sign up with your PayPal account which would include all of your financial, shipping and billing information, as well as your purchase history. It’s sort of a cross between Amazon’s payments platform and Facebook Connect. We’re told PayPal is partnering with Gigya and Janrain for PayPal Access.

As Nayar explains, identity is just another piece of the puzzle for PayPal and X.commerce. For now, PayPal has yet to announce any major retailers using Access but I’m sure we can expect a few to jump on board soon.

There’s still much more PayPal, eBay and X.commerce will announce tomorrow, I am told. For example, we don’t know the exact details of the Facebook announcement. Facebook Platform Marketing Chief Katie Burke Mitic just joined eBay’s board.

And considering how bullish both PayPal and eBay are on mobile, we can probably expect more in that area as well. PayPal is also expected to debut a new payments platform for merchants as well as in-store integrations. Stay tuned.

Last week, I moderated a panel at the Planet Of The Apps conference in London, which included Steve Yankovich, head of eBay’s mobile business operations and development.

I caught up with Steve after our panel to talk more about eBay’s strides in introducing mobile commerce to a mainstream audience.

Yankovich tells me eBay is on its way to process around $4 billion in mobile sales (= gross merchandise volume, not revenue) in 2011, double the number it logged last year.

The company’s mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, WP7 and whatnot have been downloaded over 50 million times, and its Marketplace app alone has seen about 20 million downloads.

Furthermore, three purchases are made through eBay’s mobile applications every second.

Approximately half of eBay’s mobile purchases came from outside the United States (mostly from English-speaking countries like the UK, Australia and Canada but also Germany and France).

More stats (for September 2011, as relayed by eBay PR):

- More than 117,000 car parts and accessories are sold through eBay’s core iPhone apps every week
- 2,600 vehicles are purchased through eBay’s core iPhone apps every week
- 13 pieces of clothing, shoes or accessories are sold every minute through eBay’s mobile apps

And it’s not just buyers using eBay’s apps, Yankovich points out. In fact, as of September 2011, eBay sellers are listing over 700,000 new items through their mobile applications on a weekly basis.

You can see the video interview below – apologies for having to switch cameras in the middle of it.

Also read: Connecting The Dots On eBay’s Local Shopping Strategy

eBay is adding a new member to its board today—Facebook executive Katie Burke Mitic. She joins current board members eBay CEO John Donahoe, Pierre Omidyar, Scott Cook, Fred D. Anderson, William Ford, Marc Andreessen, Edward W. Barnholt, Dawn Lepore, David Moffett, Richard Schlosberg, and Thomas Tierney.

Mitic currently leads Platform and Mobile Marketing for Facebook, with responsibility for shaping and growing products for over two million developers and businesses that engage with Facebook’s 800 million active users. Prior to joining Facebook, Mitic served as Senior Vice President of Global Product Marketing at Palm, where she oversaw hardware and software product management and marketing, as well as business and corporate development.

She also previously served as Vice President and General Manager at Yahoo, managing strategic global businesses including Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Small Business and Yahoo Personals.

Mitic is an interesting choice considering eBay’s recent pivot towards social, local and mobile commerce. Surely, Mitic’s experience will help the company and its businesses, which include PayPal, GSI Commerce and others, expand into social technology and commerce opportunities.

Mitic also brings a more fresh, tech-savvy voice to the board, joining Andreessen. Choosing a board for any company, no matter what stage, is an extremely important decision. We’ve seen with both Yahoo and HP how board can affect the future of a company. Facebook has been particularly strategic in choosing its board, recently adding adding Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, and Politico Erskine Bowles to its board. Clearly, eBay is betting on people like Mitic to help advise the company in the right direction.

Donahoe said of Mitic “We are delighted to add such strong technology expertise and leadership to our board…Katie has great experience in building innovative global platforms, products and services. Her expertise will be a tremendous asset for eBay as we focus on enabling the future of commerce and changing how consumers shop and pay with our global platforms.”

Additionally, Mitic is set to speak at eBay and PayPal’s X.commerce Innovate conference in two weeks, where she will be announcing news related to Facebook and new developer platform X.commerce.

Just… wow. It was sort of a given that Nike’s limited edition, McFly-inspired Air Mag sneakers would be fetching pretty pennies on eBay, but TMZ reports British rap act Tinie Tempah spent more than he thought he would on the first pair up for grabs. The cost of his impulse decision: a cool $37,500.

Mr. Tempah, a reputed Back To The Future nut and sneaker geek, received the sneakers and a nifty “plutonium” carrying case for his trouble.

Meanwhile, prices for the long-awaited sneakers on eBay run quite the gamut: the cheapest pair to be found at time of writing is size 7, and is sitting pretty at $4,000. At the top end of things is an especially popular pair of size 12s, with an $8,100 price tag. All auctions will be open for another 6 or so hours, so these prices will probably climb ever higher, but you need not worry if your size disappears. Nike is listing 150 pairs a day for 9 more days, so you still have a few chances to buy the kicks of your dreams.

All proceeds will benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation, so rest assured that any purchases made will serve a dual purpose: not only will they (temporarily) assuage the shoe-lust felt by sneaker aficionados with too much money, they’ll also be helping a good cause.

In October, eBay rolled out its Instant Sale program, which allows you to sell old gadgets to the e-commerce giant. You simply identify the type of device you are looking to sell and its condition, and eBay will offer you a price for your gadget. After eBay receives the package, you’ll receive a payment deposited into your PayPal account. Today, eBay is launching a iOS app for Instant Sale, which allows you to exchange gadgets for cash on the go.

Similar to the Instant Sale web platform, the iPhone app serves as a tool for consumers to sell or recycle old electronics. Within the app, you identify the type of device you wish to sell and describe its condition and you’ll be presented with an offer. If you accept the offered price, eBay will supply you with a free prepaid shipping label for the gadget to be mailed. Your PayPal account will be funded accordingly.

Of course, the app does something nifty with iOS devices you are looking to sell (if you are using the device you want to sell). The app will identify the type of device you are using, and you simply clarify the storage capacity and describe its condition to receive an offer.

eBay says sellers sold more than $133 million in iPhones in 2010 alone (that’s more than 435,000 iPhones, nearly 350,000 of which were used or refurbished), so clearly this is a big market. Since the launch of Instant Sale, the top three items sold and their highest sale prices (based on “excellent” item condition) are the Apple iPhone 3G 8GB ($117), the Apple iPhone 3GS 16GB, ($179) and the Motorola Droid A855 ($45.18).

It’s no secret that eBay has been pushing a significant mobile strategy of late, and is building an army of mobile apps. eBay says its mobile apps generated nearly $2 billion in global gross merchandise volume 2010, triple that of 2009. And in 2011, eBay expects to double its mobile GMV again to $4 billion.

Earlier this year, eBay and PayPal decided to merge their API and developer platform into a combined open platform business, X.commerce. At the time, eBay, which owns PayPal, wanted to developers one ecommerce solution that would offer a “complete approach” to online and offline business. Of course, since then eBay has acquired open source e-commerce storefront platform Magento as well as e-commerce giant GSI Commerce.

Together, eBay, PayPal, Magento and GSI will be the pillars of the X.commerce platform, which will be revealed at eBay’s X.commerce Innovate 2011 conference on October 12th and 13th. At last year’s Innovate conference, PayPal revealed its micropayments digital goods product. PayPal and eBay, have more than 200,000 developers building off the two platforms, plus the 450,000 Magento developers added via the acquisition.

PayPal’s Director of Communications Anuj Nayar explains that X.commerce will feature a “fabric” that stitches the platform together to create new experiences for retailers and their customers. eBay will be announcing a number of partnerships at the conference that will be a part of this fabric, but we know a few of these partners already. Earlier this year, eBay announced that X.commerce developers will be able to access deep analytics from Adobe’s Omniture platform.

And today, eBay is revealing a partnership with Sequoia-backed Kenshoo – the Sequoia backed digital marketing software company. Kenshoo will be supplying its online marketing software platform developers to help drive consumer awareness of their storefront, whether it’s mobile, online or in-store. For example, Kenshoo can extract the inventories of merchants, and help with SEO as well as create meaningful leads. Currently, Walmart, Target, Sears, Leows, Zappos, and Amazon use Kenshoo’s platform.

Nayar says that the Kenshoo and Adobe partnerships are just the “tip of the iceberg” for the X.commerce platform and that many more deals will be revealed in October.

We know eBay has major ambitions when it comes to dominating local and mobile commerce and engaging developers on its marketplace, PayPal and Magento platforms are part of this strategy. PayPal has been able to create a local following of developers, but the key for eBay’s expansion is to connect the dots on an open platform between PayPal and all of the company’s acquisitions.

The first 50 TechCrunch readers to use the code, ‘INN2011TC’ here will receive $100 off their registration for Innovate 2011.

It’s time for TechCrunched, where we take some of the most popular stories running on TechCrunch and put them together for you in a quick video package. This week was a big one for Apple, with stellar earnings and new products. Google+ took the iTunes App sStore by storm. And Zillow had a big IPO. If something grabs your attention, make sure to click on the links below to get more information.

Also, we’ve created a TechCrunched podcast so you can download episodes and subscribe on iTunes.

The Key Subtle Notes From Apple’s Earnings Call 

Apple’s Tim Cook: The iPad Is Cannibalizing Some Mac Sales, But There Are “A Lot More Windows PCs To Cannibalize Than Macs”

The MacBook Is Dead. Long Live The (New) MacBook Air.

With OS X Lion, Apple Touches Upon The Next Decade Of The OS

Google+ iPhone App Pushes Out Speedy Update To Keeps Users From Spinning In Circles 

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Call For The Reinvention Of The Toilet, Offers $42 Million In Potty Grants

AmEx Links Up Facebook With Coupon-less Deals, And Lets Merchants Go Social

Zillow Soars 200 Percent In First Trade With Over $1 Billion Valuation

Yahoo’s Q2: Revenue Down 5 Percent To $1.08B; Net Income Up 11 Percent

IBM Posts Q2 Revenue Of $26.7B With Net Income Up 8 Percent To $3.7B, Ups Outlook

eBay Beats The Street; Revenue Up 25 Percent To $2.8B; PayPal Posts First $1B Quarter

Microsoft Hits $17.37B In Revenue In Q4, $69.94B For The Year

eBay just posted strong second quarter earnings, reporting that revenue for quarter ended June 30, 2011, increased 25 percent to $2.8 billion, compared to the same period of 2010. Non-GAAP net income came in at $630.9 million, or $0.48 per diluted share. GAAP Net-income actually decreased in the quarter ($283.4 million, or $0.22 per diluted share), a 31 percent drop from the same quarter in 2010. This is related to the charges from the $2.4 billion purchase of GSI Commerce, which closed in June. Analysts expected $0.46 cents per share on $2.6 billion in revenue.

PayPal, once again helped buoy eBay’s business. PayPal’s net total payment volume (TPV) grew 34% to $28.7 billion in the second quarter of 2011 compared to the same period of last year. PayPal, which hit 100 million users in the quarter, delivered its first-ever billion dollar revenue quarter, thanks to strength in the Merchant Services business as well as increased penetration on eBay. PayPal expects more than $3 billion in mobile TPV this year, compared to $750 million in 2010.

As expected by analysts, eBay marketplace business also saw a resurgence in growth, with gross merchandise volume excluding vehicles (GMV) increasing by 17% year over year to $14.7 billion. GMV in the U.S. increased 14% year over year and international GMV increased 19% year over year, resulting from growth in Europe and improved performance in Korea. The company remains on track to double eBay’s mobile GMV including vehicles to over $4 billion in 2011.

PayPal is actually closing in on eBay marketplaces segment in terms of revenue. Marketplaces posted $1.6 billion in revenue, whereas PayPal posted $1.07 billion in revenue for the quarter. GSI brought in $23.8 million to revenue from the period of June 17 to June 30.

eBay CEO and President John Donahoe said in the release: Second quarter revenue and earnings were strong, with PayPal surpassing 100 million active registered accounts and reporting its first billion-dollar revenue quarter, and eBay growth in the U.S. accelerating…We also strengthened our portfolio in Q2 with acquisitions that we believe will more broadly position us to enable the future of commerce. We will partner with retailers of all sizes to help them grow in a rapidly shifting, technology-driven multichannel commerce environment, and we will help consumers shop and pay anytime, anywhere, any way.

eBay has been acquiring companies left and right and in the past few months has picked up Zong, Magento, Fig Card and Where.

For the third quarter, eBay expects net revenues in the range of $2.85 to $2.95 billion with GAAP earnings per diluted share in the range of $0.37 to $0.38 and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share in the range of $0.46 to $0.47. eBay expects net revenues in the range of $11.3 to $11.6 billion with GAAP earnings per diluted share in the range of $2.41 to $2.44 and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share in the range of $1.97 to $2.00.

From the earnings call:

• Donohoe starts the call by saying in the new retail world, consumers expect a seamless experience across platforms and stores. The competitive advantage is the ability to connect with consumers, anytime, anywhere. We enable consumers to get what they want, when they want it, and how they want it. We’re playing offense.
• PayPal serves 9 million merchants worldwide. The merchants services business now accounts for tw-thirds of PayPal’s TPV.
• Eight million people are now using PayPal mobile.
• PayPal will roll out a point of sale integration with a major retailer in 2011. In the first half of 2012, eBay expects to expand point of sale integrations to 20 national retailers
• eBay mobile apps have been downloaded more than 45 million times.
• eBay is on track to double mobile GMV to $4 billion in 2011.