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Set up secret santa gift exchange on Evite for free
United States Postal Service, Infinity Broadcasting and Evite are Key Promotional Allies; Toys for Tots Leads List of Charity Beneficiaries
San Jose, CA, November 13, 2003 - Opening up a powerful new promotional opportunity for corporate and government sponsors and charity beneficiaries, including the United States Postal Service and Toys for Tots, eBay today announced the launch of its first-ever Secret Santa Gift Exchange promotion this holiday season.
eBay's promotion takes the tried and true offline holiday fun of Secret Santa, and brings it to life online with the eBay Secret Santa Gift Exchange. It enables users to create a free online Secret Santa Gift Exchange group of friends, family or co-workers on eBay, The World's Online Marketplace. After eBay collects participating eBay members' User ID's, participants set up personal wish lists of items they hope to receive. Then on the day selected by the Secret Santa group leader, eBay conducts a "draw" that assigns one member of the group to secretly purchase a gift for another, and helps people find wish list items on eBay.
The eBay Secret Santa Gift Exchange is part of a growing trend of traditionally offline interpersonal activities migrating online. From fantasy football leagues, to dating, to just making new friends, people are moving real-world community-driven activities to the Internet in huge numbers.
"The eBay community, more than 85 million strong, is among the most passionate and active of any Internet-based community. Many eBay members have forged and maintained close friendships with others whom they have never physically met. eBay is the natural choice for where the holiday tradition of Secret Santa gift groups could shift to the online world," said Julie Haddon, Director of Consumer Promotions at eBay. "The eBay Secret Santa Gift Exchange allows our marketing and charity allies to interact organically with our community, creating a natural, seamless marketing opportunity for them. It also gives our community a chance to be part of a fun, first-of-its-kind online shopping experience that really takes advantage of the full scope of the more than 19 million items available on the site worldwide."
The U.S. Postal Service has signed on as a promotional sponsor of the program, which launches November 13, 2003. This sponsorship extends the Postal Service/eBay relationship established this past summer that calls for eBay to integrate Postal Service online shipping tools into the eBay transaction process. The Postal Service will feature eBay Secret Santa Gift Exchange posters in more than 7,500 post offices in ten top markets.
As an onsite incentive for users to participate, eBay will conduct a sweepstakes and award 100 $25 gift certificates every day from November 13 to December 18 to Secret Santa Gift Exchange participants. To promote the Secret Santa Gift Exchange, eBay will deploy "street teams" in five top markets during the holiday shopping season to encourage user sign-ups. Infinity Broadcasting will promote the Secret Santa Gift Exchange during drive time on 11 of its radio stations. Evite, the free online social planning destination, will feature the eBay Secret Santa Gift Exchange on its site from November 13 to December 12 and will offer a custom invitation template for people to host their own eBay Secret Santa Gift Exchange parties.
Additionally, Toys for Tots has joined with eBay as Secret Santa Gift Exchange's primary charitable beneficiary. The premier community action program from the United States Marine Corps, Toys for Tots will provide Secret Santa Gift Exchange participants the opportunity to make contributions of $20 to $200 to the organization through eBay Giving Works, the new charity fundraising platform made possible by the Giving Assistant, provided by MissionFish. The group will supply examples of specific toys each contributor's particular donation will buy.
Totaling $20.67 billion in gross merchandise sales in the first three quarters of 2003, eBay is the top online shopping Web site. On an annualized basis, eBay users now trade more than $729 worth of goods on the site every second. For the past three holiday seasons, Nielsen/Net Ratings has ranked eBay as the number one online shopping destination based on the number of average daily unique visitors.
"In every community throughout the nation we provide fast, easy, reliable service to residents and business owners. They have always trusted us to deliver holiday packages on time and intact," said Anita J. Bizzotto, Chief Marketing Officer, U.S. Postal Service. "We are proud to participate in the eBay Secret Santa Gift Exchange. It expands our relationship with eBay and its rapidly growing community."
"Toys for Tots saw Secret Santa Gift Exchange as not only an invaluable means to securing contributions from potentially millions of users, but also as an important way to help build relationships with an enormous consumer base," added Bill Grein, vice president of Toys for Tots. "We hope those relationships will inspire future charitable giving."
In addition to Toys for Tots, Secret Santa Gift Exchange participants can opt to contribute to other charitable organizations, including the U.S. Fund for UNICEF and America's Second Harvest, through eBay Giving Works. eBay will also host three Secret Santa toy-buying parties, with all purchases benefiting local Toys for Tots programs in San Francisco, Chicago and Atlanta.
About eBay:
eBay is The World's Online Marketplace®. Founded in 1995, eBay created a powerful platform for the sale of goods and services by a passionate community of individuals and businesses. On any given day, there are millions of items across thousands of categories for sale on eBay. eBay enables trade on a local, national and international basis with customized sites in markets around the world. Through an array of services, such as its payment solution provider PayPal, eBay is enabling global e-commerce for an ever-growing online community.
