Polish shines for QXL

eBay-competitor QXL has bought a 75% stake in Polish price comparison site Ceneo. QXL already runs a Polish auction site, Allegro, but Robert Dighero, QXL's acting chief executive, said that "This acquisition provides us with expertise in what is currently an underdeveloped area of the e-commerce market in Poland and the potential to develop this area in other geographic markets."

This is an interesting strategy: QXL's homepage lists Scandinavian and eastern European countries as their "principal operations", without even mentioning their UK and German sites, the two European countries where eBay is strongest. It seems that QXL are trying to position themselves to pick up business that eBay, with their unfortunate concentration on China, have missed.