Online retail giant eBay has posted an 11 per cent rise in profits for the first three months of 2010.

Net income has risen to nearly $400m ($397.6m, £258m) and turnover is up by 9 per cent to $2bn ($2.2bn, £1.43bn).

However, the company has stuck to its annual forecast of $9bn (£5.8bn) as it expects a tough year, partially due to the strong US dollar.

Analysts at Bloomberg believe that eBay is struggling to stem the loss of customers to Amazon. The latter site's growing stature in the worldwide shipping market is expected to see them post first quarter sales growth of 40 per cent.

Many eBay clients use Parcel2Go to deliver their purchases via a host of international couriers.