April 22 (Bloomberg) -- EBay Inc., the most-visited U.S. e-commerce site, reported sales and profit that beat estimates, a sign that efforts to overhaul its auction and fixed-price retail site are working. The shares rose 5.4 percent.

Net income was $357.1 million, or 28 cents a share, the San Jose, California-based company said today in a statement. Excluding some items, earnings were 39 cents a share, beating the 34-cent estimate by analysts in a Bloomberg survey.

EBay’s profit and sales forecast for the second quarter met analysts’ estimates. Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe is pushing EBay toward offering more out-of-season and liquidation items to counter a slowdown in online shopping. He’s also aiming to make EBay easier to use for buyers and sellers, upgrading the search engine and offering buyer guarantees.

“This earnings came as a positive surprise to us,” said Sandeep Aggarwal, an analyst at Collins Stewart LLC in San Francisco. “Their businesses did better than we expected.”

Sales in the period were $2.02 billion, topping the $1.94 billion predicted by analysts. Last year, profit was $459.7 million, or 34 cents a share.

EBay rose 80 cents to $15.58 in late trading after closing at $14.78 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have gained 5.9 percent this year.

Sales in the second quarter will be as much as $2.05 billion and earnings will be as much as 36 cents a share, EBay said. Analysts had estimated sales of $1.98 billion and earnings of 35 cents a share.

Online Sales

Online sales in the U.S. will grow 11 percent this year to $156.1 billion, down from 13 percent growth last year, according to Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Donahoe overhauled listing fees last year and encouraged sellers to offer more fixed-price items. Fixed-price sales rose 12 percent in the quarter, while auction sales declined 20 percent. Fixed-price sales may account for as much as 70 percent of the site’s sales within a few years, up from about half today, Donahoe said in an interview.

“What we did last year was we leveled the playing field between fixed-price and auction so that buyers and sellers can buy and sell in the format of their choice,” Donahoe said.

Gross merchandise volume, the value of all goods that users sold on EBay’s sites, excluding vehicles, fell 16 percent to $10.8 billion.

Shareholder Relief

“While the core marketplace business did show decline, it wasn’t nearly as bad as any of us had anticipated,” said Fred Moran, an analyst at New York-based Benchmark Co. “The EBay report should bring a lot of relief to shareholders.”

Payments through EBay’s PayPal rose 11 percent to $643 million in the quarter. Registered accounts rose 22 percent to 73.1 million.

Donahoe is paring EBay’s businesses and last week announced plans to hold an initial public offering for the Skype Internet- calling unit. Skype revenue grew 21 percent to $153.2 million in the quarter. The unit also added about 38 million users and now has more than 443 million people using the service.

Amazon.com Inc., the world’s largest online retailer, is scheduled to report first-quarter results tomorrow. Analysts project a 15 percent increase in sales to $4.75 billion, boosted by free shipping offers and discounts, according to a Bloomberg survey.

While jettisoning some businesses, EBay is expanding in Asia. The company released a Japanese-to-English translation service this month and last week bought Gmarket Inc., the biggest South Korean online auctioneer, for $1.2 billion.

EBay said it will more than double sales in the country by combining Gmarket with its South Korean unit. The company plans to enter Japan in the next 6 to 12 months, Donahoe said.

Last week, EBay sold a service called StumbleUpon, which helps people find Web sites, back to its founders for an undisclosed amount. EBay bought that business in May 2007 for $75 million.

To contact the reporter on this story: Joseph Galante in San Francisco at jgalante3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 22, 2009 20:22 EDT