eBay has some 72 million active shoppers worldwide and 78 million daily listings.
The company has found out that not everybody likes auction, which can take weeks to close. More and more customers would like everything happening quicker.
They have also noticed that very often e-commerce starts at search engines, mostly at Google, and not directly from eBay. Customers want first look at the wider market seeking new offers or lower prices. This change in consumer behavior gives search engines an edge over others, which they have also noticed, especially Google.
The nature of e-commerce is that it must be quick, as a matter of facts, it is becoming quicker all the time. eBay Express, starting in April 2006, is entirely new e-commerce site for busy consumers, who want just click and buy.
The company already offers fixed priced items from individuals, small businesses and retailers.
A new service opens via link from eBay.com and has a site with picture rich design. It is like Amazon.com or other online shops.
A customer can pay with credit card or PayPal ( owned by eBay ).
The launch is not a simple issue. eBay means two things at the moment: auctions and second hand items. In order to be able to stretch the brand to fixed priced, new product
marketing needs a massive launch of this new site. It can and must change also the brand image of the present brand, which will partly lose its uniqueness.
eBay has a real need for new customers and markets. Its growth of new customers was in the fourth quarter of 2003 50% but two years later only 25 %. The business growth is slowing down, which also Wall Street has noticed. One reason is the present sales of the company, $ 4.1 billion last year. It is hard to grow aggressively, when the company already is that big. Another reason is a growing competition, the company has followers.
The launch-target must be twofold: to get the present customers buy more and especially to get new customers, who could then use also the present service. It will not be easy because the competition, especially Google, has taken new and more aggressive steps towards new market possibilities.
Google has its Google Bar, a free listing service, which lets anyone offer products for sale. After eBay Express launch, it is really interesting to see what other players will do.
eBay Express has a great fraud concern. They will list products only from merchants, who have 98 % - plus positive customer ratings on at least 100 transactions. Many things can be judged from this, concerning the present service and e-commerce in general.
However eBay Express could open a totally new audience to the company, which it has not reached earlier. The strength which a company has, is its wellknown brand and reputation.
The launch can also start the brand stretch war among the big online companies: what shall Amazon.com, Google, Yahoo and the other big players do.
The online sales as a total will expand and net will take markets from offline shops. Also I think that online shopsoffline advertising will increase a lot worldwide following partly the rapid increase in broadband connections and the growth of the number in computers, new mobile phones and other end-user devices.
The consumer will be delighted if new products would come into online sales. It would mean tougher competition, wider sortiments and lower prices. But would the delivery-times get much shorter?
The internet marketers can utilize the new market. It has a lot of interest right in the start in medias offline and online, which gives additional value to the campaigns. |
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