Yahoo to shut down NAmerican Web auction site

San Francisco, May 9: Yahoo Inc. has told users it will shut down its North American Web auction site, the second service the world's most visited Internet media company has set to retire in the past week.

According to a message posted on the Yahoo Auctions site at http://auctions.yahoo.com/, the service will no longer accept new auction lists from June 3. The last day to bid or buy goods and services on the auction site is June 16.

Yahoo officials said last week they planned to shut down Yahoo Photos, its first-generation photo storage site, in June.

They asked users to move to Yahoo's Web 2.0 photo sharing site, Flickr.

The latest closure applies to Yahoo's U.S. and Canadian auction sites. Still open for business are Yahoo auction sites in three Asian markets -- Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan.

''After careful consideration, we have decided to close down our Yahoo US and Canada Auction sites to better serve our valued customers through other Yahoo properties,'' the U.S.

auctions site told visitors on Tuesday.

Yahoo continues to offering a range of U.S. e-commerce sites, including ones for shopping, auto sales, classified advertising and small business.

On Friday, Jeff Weiner, executive vice president of Yahoo's Network Division, said in a company statement: ''We are making great strides in our ongoing efforts to align Yahoo's resources and focus on core strategic priorities.'' A Yahoo spokesman was not immediately available to comment on whether the planned closing of the two sites was part of a broader plan to pare back slow-growing services.

The closings have come to light in media reports rather than specific company announcements.

According to audience measurement firm comScore Inc., online auction leader eBay Inc. accounted for more than 94 percent of online auctions activity among U.S. Web users last week. Online retail giant Amazon.com Inc.'s U.S. auction site accounted for one-third of a percentage point, while Yahoo's auctions held only an 0.2 percent share.

''It comes with little surprise given Yahoo's advertising relationship with eBay, and eBay's massive dominance of the auction category,'' Hitwise research director LeeAnn Prescott wrote in a blog post.

A year ago, eBay and Yahoo announced a strategic alliance to cooperate on a range of services in their core U.S markets.

As of Friday, May 4, 2007 certain Yahoo auction features were discontinued. A limited set of customer service features and account tools will be available through October 29.

Reuters >