"There will not be much difference in our development in the future," said Wesley Bai, spokesman of Eachnet.com.

He said there had been a lot of exchanges in technology and personnel training since eBay bought one-third stakes in Shanghai-based Eachnet.com's US parent, EachNet Inc, but the business was mainly run by the Chinese team.

The Chinese company has about 150 employees mainly in Shanghai and more than 2 million active users who frequently trade on its website.

EachNet Inc's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bo Shao said in an interview last year that his company would break even in 2002, but according to eBay sources, Shao's company is still in the red.

However, the company's business has been benefiting greatly from the spread of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrom).

Bai with Eachnet.com revealed that in May, the average daily transactions conducted on his website reached 2.3 million yuan (US$278,000), compared with 1.7 million yuan (US$206,000) before SARS really impacted in April.

The average daily hits on Eachnet.com exceeded 10 million and more than 6,000 items were traded everyday.

Eachnet.com gets its revenues mainly from listing fees charged to traders, final value fees after transactions are completed, and fees charged on those who open shops on Eachnet's website.

Fang Xingdong, one of the pioneers of China's Internet industry and chairman of the industry research house ChinaLabs.com Ltd, believes that although eBay's entry into the market would promote the development of e-commerce in China, its impact will not be considerable.

"Most of e-commerce service providers in China run on a small scale and the room for their development is limited," said Fang.

(China Daily June 13, 2003)