eBay Germany has launched a new service for shoppers called “eBay Plus” offering free deliveries and returns as well as access to exclusive deals, promotions and other benefits for an annual fee of €19.90 as the US online marketplace celebrates its 20th birthday.
The new programme is similar to the Amazon Prime service, which offers customers free deliveries and other benefits for €49 per year, but it has a few conditions. Sellers who want to participate in eBay Plus with their products need to have the status “Seller with top-rating” and grant their customers the right to return unwanted products for free during one month, with eBay providing return labels.
The qualified sellers will be able to profit from 15% discounts that eBay grants on sales commissions for eBay Plus transactions while the eBay Plus articles will be highlighted through the logo and the filter in the search functions. By participating in eBay Plus, sellers can thus positively distinguish themselves from others.
eBay Plus also offers the possibility of faster deliveries for orders coming in by 2pm to be handled and shipped on the same day so shoppers can get their products usually on the next day or the day after at the very latest. In addition, shoppers can get as part of eBay Plus free access to exclusive deals and promotions and other advantages, e.g. in the area “selling via eBay”.
It is planned to introduce eBay Plus gradually on eBay marketplace in Germany from the end of September and make it available to all German eBay users in November at the latest. With the start of the programme, about 10% of all deals from German commerce eBay traders will be available for buying via eBay Plus which corresponds to several millions of articles.
“With the introduction of eBay Plus in Germany, we are further expanding the options for shoppers in the area of shipping. At the same time, we are responding with the programme to the fact that simple returns are a decisive factor for German online shoppers. This is the clear result of different studies that we have carried out,” Dr. Stephan Zoll, eBay Germany chief, said.
“For German shoppers, simple return possibilities represent the most important criterion when deciding whether to make an online purchase while in other countries such as the USA or the UK other factors including customer service or simple findability of articles are considered more important. With eBay Plus, we are reacting to the high importance of returns for German online shoppers – free deliveries is a key component of this programme.”
Responding to eBay sellers who want to have more objective and simple selling standards and less subjective ratings from shoppers, the online market place is changing the selling standards from February 2016 thus providing more control for sellers in terms of their service status.
As part of the changes, the review of shoppers and detailed seller ratings will be omitted from the calculation of the deficiency rate while open cases will no longer count as defects if the respective problem has been successfully handled with the shopper. The deficiency rate will in the future be only based on two criteria: the purchase abandonment by the sellers and cases that have been closed by eBay as no clarification from the seller has been provided.
Despite the obvious benefits, the new eBay Plus programme bears some potential challenges for the market place as, in contrast to Amazon, the platform doesn’t sell on its own but has to convince the market place participants to take part in eBay Plus and keep its promises towards delivery times and costs absorption, otherwise it could damage its reputation.
Amazon Prime, on the other hand, is paying off for the e-commerce giant despite considerable costs as the Prime members have become extremely loyal, shop less with competitors and generate considerably higher revenues. According to the industry expert Consumer Intelligence Research, Amazon Prime members in the USA purchase items worth on average $1,500 per year while ‘normal’ shoppers only spend $600.
