eBay Inc has made a takeover offering to an ecommerce service provider GSI Commerce, a deal that may rival Amazon.com Inc. The online auction company wants to purchase GSI for a price of $1.96 billion.

This week eBay offered GSI shareholders $29.25 per share in cash, a premium of 50.9 percent from the stock's closing price on Friday.

"It's one of the few fulfillment operations that could rival Amazon," BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis said. "Amazon is fulfilling its third-party sellers more and more. eBay is all third-party sellers."

GSI, which owns Web businesses such as Rue La La and ShopRunner, also provides retailers with technology, payment processing and customer care services for their e-commerce operations.