eBay to expand footprint with HelloCorp tie-up

From Left: eBay seller Ayesh Ukwatte receiving an Appreciation Certificate from HelloCorp eBay Operations Head Trevin Speering while eBay India Vice President Latif Nathani presenting a similar certificate to eBay seller Khazim Cader. PIC BY PRADEEP PATHIRANA

„„By Chandeepa Wettasinghe Fortune 500 company and global e-commerce giant eBay announced that it will be increasing its footprint in Sri Lanka through a master agreement with local business process outsourcing leader HelloCorp (Pvt) Ltd. “This is a big occasion for eBay’s presence in Sri Lanka. This is also a huge opportunity for Sri Lanka in expanding its cross border business. We’ve done our due diligence, and we’re extremely happy,” eBay India Vice President Latif Nathani said yesterday. He said that the expansion will help drastically increase the export potential of Sri Lankan small and medium enterprises through eBay.

“Our partnership with eBay is to provide all the services that eBay provides to its sellers, and increase seller participation,” HelloCorp eBay Operations Head Trevin Speering said. He noted that HelloCorp will, in addition to being a call centre, provide training required for eBay tools and applications through training discussions and seminars.

“As time goes, we will also want to acquire new sellers to eBay,” he added. Nathani pointed out that there are over 3,000 Sri Lankan vendors active on eBay with around 8,000-9,000 listings active daily. “Every 30 minutes, a customer is buying a health product from Sri Lanka, and every 30 minutes a customer is buying jewellery from Sri Lanka,” he said.

Nathani said that eBay is also a significant employment generator. “We did a study on employment, and on average, a person engaged in eBay exports employs 4.8 people full time and 1.6 people on a part time basis,” he added. eBay’s oldest seller in South Asia, Sri Lanka’s Khazim Cader said that even though PayPal is not yet available in Sri Lanka, payment avenues such as SWIFT transfers and bank remittances support his business, which usually has listings upwards of 1,500 daily. “I usually have around 1,200 listings daily. Having 10 stores here won’t bring that much of traffic,” eBay seller Ayesh Ukwatte said.