eBay Grooms Another Phenom

And still another obstacle, some eBay watchers say, is eBay itself. "There may some conflicting visions of what to do with PayPal inside eBay," says Eric Jackson, author of The PayPal Wars and a marketing executive at PayPal before its purchase by eBay. "To the extent that eBay makes payments safe and easy anywhere, it's essentially robbing eBay of potential revenue."

For now, the debate inside eBay seems to be favoring letting PayPal off the leash, but under tight supervision. "eBay may be cannibalized by non-eBay merchants using PayPal," says Jordan. "But you can't be the global standard in online payments and just serve one marketplace. I don't want to help competition but the reality is, if PayPal isn't servicing their payment needs, someone else will. It's a myopic strategy to boost eBay at the expense of PayPal."

That's good news not only for PayPal, but also for eBay investors who were spooked about what may have been early signs of a slowdown in growth for the company's core marketplace operations.

It's too early to tell whether, as some analysts suggest, eBay is seeing more eBay sellers move out on their own. But if so, one of the companies that could benefit most could turn out to be PayPal.