eBay’s Counter To Amazon Prime

Come Tuesday (Sept. 15), eBay is set to roll out its own speedy shipping service called eBay Plus.

The service, which for now is only being launched in Germany, will be made available to subscribers for a €19.90 ($22) membership and will provide free two-day shipping with a 30-day return guarantee, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Though the service appears to be much in line with Amazon’s two-day delivery service, it won’t rely on controlling inventory in its private warehouses like Amazon. Instead, the service will require participating merchants to ship out products on the same day if a purchase is made by 2 p.m.

As an incentive to the seller, the eCommerce giant will offer discounts on the listing fee and a better spot on its product listing page.

Starting earlier this year, eBay has been testing its soon-to-be-launched two-day delivery service and has since signed up thousands of sellers in Germany, WSJ reported.

As PYMNTS reported in July this year, the company also tested out same-day delivery service eBay Now in the U.S. but then eventually killed it.

“While we saw encouraging results with the eBay Now service, we always intended it as a pilot, and we are now exploring delivery and pick-up/drop-off programs that are relevant to many more of our 25 million sellers and that cover a wider variety of inventory that consumers tell us they want,” the company said in a statement.

The new membership program in Germany comes after eBay’s continuous efforts to introduce a robust delivery program, which could fill in the gaps in its existing merchant-dependent delivery network known for delays and missed deliveries.

The company currently faces stiff competition from not just Amazon but also other top players like Walmart, which are fast gearing up their delivery services.

Walmart recently announced its plans to test out a $50 loyalty program that could deliver products in three days or less.

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