According to a report in the Sunday Times, the new service will be targeted at established companies who do not want to offer goods for auction, but want to offer customers goods at fixed prices.
will be available only to retailers selling new goods and those who are able to offer customers a professional commercial service and meeting certain criteria, such as the ability to ship goods within three days and answer customer enquiries within a day and have an established returns policy.
Doug McCallum, managing director of EBay UK, told the paper that customers using the service will be able to use a single shopping cart to buy goods from multiple online merchants instead of having to pay each separately. However, he dismissed talk that the launch of eBay Express had anything to do with a slowing of trade within its main auction business.
He said: "The core site is growing at 10 times the rate of the retail sector."
The launch follows a deal the eBay signed last month with to deliver individually tailored ads to eBay customers. Google signed up to be the exclusive provider of all advertising on eBay sites outside the US, and will also integrate click-to-call services via a partnership with the eBay-owned Skype and Google Talk.
Whenever a bidder looks for a product on eBay, Google will provide related text-based search links. This service is due to launch in early 2007. In May, eBay linked up with another internet giant, this time . The two are partnering in the areas of search and graphical advertising, online payments, a co-branded toolbar as well as, like the deal with Google, the opportunity to explore "click-to-call", which provides a link inside an ad that allows consumers to contact the advertiser directly to pursue products.
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