eBay Australia will cull 18 positions as part of a head office decision to slash 1000 jobs globally, saving the company $211 million a year.

Local eBay spokesman Daniel Feiler said the cuts will be mainly across marketing.

“The most important thing for our users — buyers and sellers — is that customer support and account management will not be impacted,” Feiler said.

“Staff were told yesterday [about the cuts] and they will be given between 10 days and two months to leave, depending on what projects they are working on.”

Feiler would not elaborate on what departments the remaining job cuts will affect.

eBay announced two acquisitions Monday, at the same time saying it plans to lay off over 1000 staff worldwide and cut back on recruitment.

The company will pay almost $1.41billion for US online payment company Bill Me Later, and around $390 million in cash for the operator of two Danish classifieds sites, dba.dk and bilbasen.dk.

Bill Me Later is second only to PayPal, the online payment operator that eBay already owns, the company said. The two services complement one another, an eBay spokesperson said, with eBay with Bill Me Later able to offer delayed payment or financing options to eBay customers using PayPal.

The Danish classifieds sites, one linked to newspaper Den Blå Avis and one for automobile buyers, will bring eBay an additional 186 million monthly page views, the company said. It now owns classifieds sites covering 1000 cities in 20 countries.

— With Peter Sayer (IDG News Service)