Tag: ebay mcommerce

eBay continues to shine the limelight on mobile commerce

For several years, eBay has dominated the e-commerce scene, with only Amazon considered to be its most significant competitor. The online retailer has put a great deal of emphasis in improving the online shopping experience of consumers and has recently begun to embrace more commerce in an aggressive fashion. Indeed, eBay anticipates that mobile commerce will account for a significant portion of its sales in the coming years. This week, CEO John Donahoe outlined plans to take the company in a relatively new direction: Offline commerce.

Retailer aims to blur the lines between physical and digital commerce

Donahoe is eager to bridge the gap between the digital and physical worlds when it comes to commerce. This has been accomplished to some degree by eBay already through the adoption of mobile commerce. Consumers shopping for products from their mobile devices have shown how blurry the lines between physical and digital retail have become. This summer, eBay plans to partner with several retailers in order to make mobile commerce have an even more tangible presence in the real world.

Pop up shops gaining notice

According to Donahoe, eBay will be working to support “pop up” shops this year. The idea behind pop up shops is somewhat simple: A store front that can be located anywhere and sell products online to those using mobile devices. These shops are becoming more popular in the retail industry, especially when it comes to retailers trying to reach out to busy consumers. In 2011, UK retailer Tesco created a pop up shop in South Korea, where QR codes where used to sell products to consumers using public transit. eBay has plans to follow in Tesco’s footsteps to some degree.

New York may soon have new pop up shops

The online retailer will be leveraging the power of QR codes in order to sell products. These codes can be scanned by a mobile device to initiate a mobile transaction. The products are then delivered to a consumer’s home or elsewhere as defined by the customer. PayPal and eBay already have strong ties to several physical retailers and expect that this initiative will be well received. The retailer plans to launch this new initiative this year in New York.

The online giant has declared the country to be the way ahead in the internet shopping ecosystem

One of the biggest online shopping companies in the world, eBay, may not yet be known as a leader in the Indian internet marketplace, but it intends to make its place through the use of mobile commerce.

The company feels it may have an advantage over local players within the smartphone marketplace.

According to eBay, it feels secure in its mobile commerce foundation and this will help to bring increased business through its platform in India. Marketing director, Alok Agarwal, and eBay India e-commerce evangelist, Deepa Thomas have both shared this opinion. They have shared their opinions about the road forward for eBay within the country.

At the moment eBay India has a large online marketplace position with more than 5 million users.

These users are from 4,306 different Indian cities. Comparatively, Facebook has 2.2 million users in India. The company has revealed that it feels that it has been a pioneer in the online marketplace and now intends to do the same for mobile commerce in India. The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IMAI) has said that the online shopping industry in the country is worth approximately $800 million and that this figure is growing at a rate of 70 percent. That said, according to the company, eBay India is growing at a rate that is faster than that of the online market as a whole.

According to Agarwal, they are currently welcoming competition in the country, as it will help the mobile commerce ecosystem to expand and thrive. That said, they feel that they are true online marketplace innovators, which will help to keep eBay differentiated from the rest in a number of directions.

The latest reports from the company have said that it boasts more than 2,000 selling categories with more than 30,000 sellers. An interview with Agarwal revealed that the company feels that as mobile commerce continues to grow in the country, eBay’s growth will only accelerate, as they have already established themselves thoroughly in the smartphone and tablet channels.