eBay Motors

Once ballyhooed as "the Internet's largest marketplace for buying and selling all things automotive," eBay Motors' numbers have been slipping. But eBay's attempt to goose profits at Motors looks more likely to put them in reverse.

While car buyers have been able to comparison shop online for years, drivers who want to lease their cars mainly have had to do their own legwork -- until now. LeaseTrader.com this week launched a new service to help them comparison shop for leases.

EBay (EBAY) is a Web pioneer, having built a multibillion dollar business out of allowing people to essentially put garage sales on the Internet. That simple idea led to fast growth more than a decade ago and helped define what was possible online for other companies that followed. The company's...