Ebay launches text bidding service

Service that was available in Spain comes to the UK

Ebay has launched a text-based bidding service for mobile phone users in the UK, France and Belgium.

“Re-bidding” which has been available to Spanish users since September 2006, gives members the opportunity to make and track bids through their mobile phones.

Ebay does this by sending users "outbid" alerts, in the form of an SMS messages, which can be replied to if they want to increase a bid when they are not near a PC.

The UK service costs 12p per message for both inbound and outbound messages. The service uses mobile transaction provider Mblox's network so does not require any additional downloads or up-front payments. It will be offered to Ebay users when they initially place a bid online.