The company is facing a number of challenges: its shift away from catering to small merchants that thrived on auctions, to a focus on mass sellers and on-the-spot sales has cost eBay some of the brand equity that separated it from other sites like Amazon. As such, Compete reports that fewer shoppers are returning to eBay, and the average amount of money they spend per visit has stagnated. This was also reflected in the company’s lackluster Q4 performance.

Founded in Germany in 2005, Swoopo launched its U.S. site (and a Cupertino, Calif. office) in 2008. Designed to combine “entertainment” and e-commerce, the company says it auctions over 10,000 items like computers, to game consoles and even cars per month; the trick is that buyers actually pay to bid—they can buy bids, which cost $0.75 in “packs” of up to 500—creating a somewhat high-stakes game. Release.

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