[Updated] eBay UK to launch new fashion site for brands
5/03/2010 at 01:43
eBay UK has announced that it is to launch a new fashion sub-site for branded clothing. Mark Lewis, eBay UK’s MD, made the announcement at the Retail Week Conference.
The new site, at fashion.ebay.co.uk, will offer more photography and a browsing interface in place of the normal eBay “list”. From the RW report, it seems that the new site will be limited to major retailers, as in response to a question, Mark Lewis said that the new site would focus on “sellers able to sell branded items in volume”.
Smaller sellers in the CSA categories, meanwhile, are likely to wonder when a public announcement of this change is likely to be made. It’s a major threat to any smaller business who will be excluded from the site, and should have at least had a follow-up announcement made where every eBay seller could read it.
It seems likely that fashion will not be the last area targetted by eBay in this way, as Mark Lewis spoke of the need to offer a more “segmented user experience” on eBay. The new site is due to roll out in around two months: more details when we get them.
Update 05/03/2010
Don’t get too excited. We’ve been told by eBay that this is basically a rebranding of Outlets. The “Outlets” tab will go, and be replaced with “Fashion”. Any outlets which aren’t fashion-based will be linked from an “Outlets” tab from the fashion site.
jimbo says
9:42 am on 05/03/2010
Will the “sub-site” be focusing on last years fashions
whirly says
9:55 am on 05/03/2010
‘Bench’ must think xmas has come early, not only does nearly every clothing outlet suppply the nations chavs, now they get a dedicated site. chavclobber.ebay.co.uk
Dom says
9:58 am on 05/03/2010
Shouldn’t they sort out the shopping experience on the main site first? Shopping cart, improved checkout, best match etc.
If I was a small clothing seller I would be very concerned at buyers been directed to a micro site rather than getting to search all sellers.
What will be next media? gaming?
Urban33 says
9:59 am on 05/03/2010
I feel another ebat express coming on….that was what it was called wasn’t it?
Talk about take the focus off the main site…and I wonder if there will be DSR’s & feedback there..I think not.
Stu
JohnC says
10:59 am on 05/03/2010
So the likes of Argos outlet will be reached via people knowing to click on “Fashion”, then navigate to “Outlet”, then find Argos?
That’ll cheer them up loads
Sue Bailey says
11:03 am on March 5th, 2010
According to eBay today, yes…
I think we may see the plan revised – I don’t imagine that “Fashion” will be the last new tab; there’s an awful lot of space on that navigation bar just waiting to be filled up with “Music”, “DVD”, “Homewares” etc. don’t you think.
JohnC says
11:06 am on March 5th, 2010
Just had an amazing idea! Why don’t they put a “shops” tab in that empty space for the time being?
Oh, sorry, they took that away because “very few people used it”.
Rich Brady says
12:57 pm on March 5th, 2010
“an awful lot of space on that navigation bar just waiting to be filled up with “Music”, “DVD”, “Homewares” etc. don’t you think.”
a la Amazon et Play?
Urban33 says
11:34 am on 05/03/2010
Hmmm right so bugger all really.
Ebay really are going for bigger retailers for the site aren’t they!
Something I just don’t get as there is no niche there, but then their choice!
jimbo says
12:43 pm on March 5th, 2010
The odd thing is I would imagine it will have the reverse impact to what eBay would want. The site will have less choice, become less competitive and will end up with less new to market items.
People who shop on amazon or asos aren’t going to swith to shopping on eBay but eBay shoppers may well move away from the site.
Sue Bailey says
5:09 pm on March 5th, 2010
People who shop on amazon or asos aren’t going to swith to shopping on eBay
My suspicion is that *that* is the point of this development. It’s an eBay for people who don’t/won’t shop on eBay: no small sellers, no second hand goods, all branded, all new, all names you recognise.
jimbo says
6:27 pm on March 5th, 2010
Do you think it will work though Sue?
I don’t see eBay as being able to offer the user experience or having the inside fashion know how and connections that a site like asos has or the ability to create the level of consumer confidence and usability that Amazon has. Some of the recent DOTD’s say much more to me about eBay than press releases and published statistics.
Sue Bailey says
7:21 pm on March 5th, 2010
Arguably, eBay don’t have to know about fashion or have connections – they just have to provide the platform, which is what they’re doing: the expertise and the trustworthy name is being supplied by the merchant.
Do I think it will work? No. Because eBay aren’t (if track record is anything to go on) preparing their outlet merchants for the expectations of eBay buyers: the speed of delivery; that all emails need answering in 2 hours or so and not just in working hours; most especially that you can’t list stuff and then find it’s out of stock.
Would I like to be proved wrong? Yes. I think it’s quite possible that these big names could bring some much-needed credibility to eBay, which **in the long run** would be good for sellers. (In the shorter term, it’s terrifying, I admit.)
Savvy Paul says
12:51 pm on 05/03/2010
Hmm, this is all starting to fit together. The ‘invitation only’ segmentation looks like it’s designed to tackle a number of ebay’s priority issues:
1. Effective removal / sidelining of non-niche lower volume sellers in favour of larger volume, established brands. If you don’t sell something unusual, or provide a differentiated, specialised service, then this will make life very, very difficult.
2. Revision of feedback / seller performance. ‘New’ site, new rules. Wouldn’t be surprised to see the comments disappear and just leave DSRs. Again, the DSR based regime is clearly designed to be very tough for low volume sellers and relatively lenient for high volume sellers.
3. Decluttering of search results. From (temporariliy) removing international visibility to best match, eBay has been struggling with how to tackle this.
A few years down the road, the top bar may look a lot like Amazon, with all the segments populated by ‘Outlets’. Which would leave a smaller ‘heritage’ site for private / small businesses. eBay might even choose to sell off that element.
Looks like eBay had a thought along the lines of ‘Why does 80% of our work come from 20% of our volume?’
JD says
5:08 pm on 05/03/2010
Way to go eBay.
Is this the first move back to a category based search?
Bring it on.
Niko says
5:26 pm on 05/03/2010
E-bay is being corporatized. New DSR system to squize out the regular sellers and small businesses in exchange for setting up a new platform for industrial giants.
JP says
3:25 pm on 06/03/2010
It will good to see the cheap high street clothing being sectioned off. As a buyer I would not touch some of these outlets, they seem to have big issues with stock control.
Sue Bailey says
3:28 pm on March 6th, 2010
Nice response, Mr P
JP says
8:02 pm on March 6th, 2010
Thx. Also their listings seem devoid of measurements and descriptions. Obviously their staff are not yet accustomed to the demands of the eBay buyer!
JD says
12:08 am on March 7th, 2010
If not already then, I am sure that their management will soon be.
At least they will be if their management is any good.
For some the love affair with eBay might just be a little short lived.
Jimbo says
9:10 am on March 7th, 2010
If you look at the quantity of listings + the quality of stock + the poor implinitation you would have to think that the love affair was never really there. Very few of the outlets look like they have made any real commitment to eBay.
Possibly eBay are hoping that the sub site will be more attractive to the “high street” names.
kiteman says
8:09 pm on 07/03/2010
great news for us smaller retailers that should thin the listings out a bit until they revert back cant remember what the last attemt at this was called i still have the brochure,no sorry binned it,please throw the switch for me ebay last 3 days zero same 3 days last week 87 sales
Sue Bailey says
9:11 pm on March 7th, 2010
That would be eBay Express. And there’s no indication that fashion.ebay.co.uk listings would be taken out of the general listings; as far as I know, it would just be a filtering of those results, similar to how Outlets works now.