New eBay Fulfillment Service

When you think of ecommerce, the first word that comes to mind is likely Amazon, which generated $11.2 billion in profits in 2018 alone. Recently, the world’s first and most popular online auction site, eBay, announced it would launch its own fulfillment service in 2020. Will eBay rival Amazon, or will the service fall short?

More and More Platforms Turning to Their Own Fulfillment

It seems as if 2019 is a big year for ecommerce platforms launching their own fulfillment services, and eBay is the next in line. Recently, they announced they would launch an end-to-end fulfillment service for its sellers that would increase shipping reliability and delivery speed on the products people buy the most. This service, called Managed Delivery, will launch in 2020 and may only be available to the platform’s highest-volume sellers at launch. The consumer demand for faster, more reliable shipping is widespread, and companies are scrambling to keep up in order to meet it.

Amazon Leading the Industry in Shipping

Of course, the fast shipping revolution all started with Amazon and it’s two-day Prime shipping. Just as other companies got in on the two-day craze – including platforms like Walmart, which attempted to offer completely free two-day shipping without a membership fee – Amazon took things one step further and began offering one-day and in some cases even same-day shipping. This is a huge disruption to the ecommerce most sellers know, and many eBay sellers have closed their shops and turned to Amazon, instead.

Keeping eBay Relevant

It’s safe to say that any ecommerce platform that can’t follow Amazon’s lead is likely to suffer in the coming years, particularly as Amazon has managed to establish one-hour delivery in large metro areas nearest their many distribution centers. Though eBay’s Managed Delivery service likely won’t be able to get customers their products in an hour – or maybe even the next day – it is expected to provide the same high-quality two-day shipping offered by Amazon Prime.  The online auction giant will utilize third parties to run a seamless end-to-end process that allows sellers access to their inventory and management tools online.

eBay Managed Delivery vs. Other Fulfillment Services

It should be noted that eBay sellers are not required to utilize Managed Delivery, and it may not be available to many sellers at first. Though the service may give eBay sellers the option to get their products to consumers faster and more reliably, it may be possible to save even more by choosing an outside fulfillment partner that offers a wide variety of inventory and order management services specially tailored to your company’s needs. Whether you sell hundreds of products or just a few, it is always worth your time to look into your order fulfillment options and choose the one that best suits your needs and budget.

eBay’s new Managed Delivery option was designed to rival Amazon Prime, but whether it can hold a candle to the ecommerce king’s fulfillment remains to be seen. For many sellers, it is better to step away from expensive fulfillment offered by the platforms and instead choose their own companies based on their unique needs.