eBay officially announced its fulfillment service will become available to US sellers next year after 10 years of floating the idea and surveying sellers on and off. In January, we reported eBay was inviting US sellers to participate in the pilot program. eBay already offers fulfillment services in Germany and Australia.
Experiencing declining sales, eBay is looking for ways to boost revenue by offering seller services, something Etsy has done to the delight of Wall Street. On Wednesday, eBay officially announced “Managed Delivery,” and eBay surveyed sellers yet again about their interest. eBay explained:
“To help make delivery of your sales easy and fast, eBay is introducing Managed Delivery, an end-to-end fulfillment service that will be available to US sellers in 2020. Managed Delivery will be a competitively-priced, reliable and fast shipping option for businesses. We anticipate sellers with high-volume inventory in popular categories like Electronics, Home & Garden, and Fashion will benefit the most from our new service.”
eBay’s version of a fulfillment service is different than Amazon’s FBA service, which allows sellers to offer free shipping through Amazon Prime – eBay isn’t building fulfillment capability itself.
eBay explained, with Managed Delivery, “our national fulfillment partners will store, pack, and ship your items. You’ll be able to seamlessly manage and track your inventory through Seller Hub and third-party integrations. Managed Delivery will be available for fulfilling orders whether they’re placed on eBay, or other online marketplaces.”
eBay said the partner model, which will be seamless to buyers and sellers, allows it to roll out Managed Delivery faster, leverage partners’ expertise, and keep costs down.
eBay is working on its fulfillment pilot with several partners across the US. “Warehouses will be strategically located across the country, storing inventory closer to buyers, resulting in faster delivery time and lower shipping cost,” it said.
eBay described the benefits for sellers as follows:
- Lower fulfillment costs. With Managed Delivery, you’ll save on fulfillment/delivery costs because eBay will negotiate competitive rates on 1-day 2-day and 3-day delivery options.
- We’ll protect you. Sellers enrolled in Managed Delivery will receive the same protections as Top Rated Sellers for Managed Delivery transactions. In addition, we will remove any negative or neutral feedback or item not received, stockout and item not as described (INAD) defects for the Managed Delivery transactions as long your INAD performance meets eBay’s requirements.
- Simplified and faster shipping. In collaboration with our fulfillment partners, eBay will manage logistics and get your items out the door quickly and on time so you can focus on selling.
Increased visibility. Make your listings stand out—let buyers know you’ll get their purchases to them in 3 days or less. - Save storage space. Store your merchandise at a Managed Delivery center and save storage space, and costs.
eBay said it was still designing the Managed Delivery service and asked sellers to complete a survey.
Survey questions include:
Do you use a listing tool to create your listings?
Do you sell single or multiple quantity items?
How do you typically fulfill your eBay items?
What would be important to you for a fulfillment service (please rank order) – sellers could select from among the following criteria:
- Competitive pricing
- eBay protections
- International shipping
- Easier returns
- Increased visibility (sic) for my listings
- Faster Shipping
- Multichannel/Fulfilling for other channels
How likely are you to sign up for this eBay service?
Why would you decide to opt into managed delivery with eBay (please rank order)? – sellers could select from among the following criteria:
- Save Time
- Save on Shipping Fees
- Save on Storage Costs
- Be protected by eBay for late shipments
- Attract More Buyers by getting items to them faster
Sellers can learn more about eBay Managed Delivery at eBay.com/manageddelivery
See the full announcement on the eBay Seller Announcement Board, and read what sellers had to say about the eBay fulfillment service when we wrote about the pilot in January.
And eBay CEO Devin Wenig had this to say about Managed Delivery:
“A common request we hear from our high-velocity sellers is to help make delivery of high-volume items easy and fast. Managed Delivery will be a competitively-priced logistics solution for businesses selling high-volume goods in popular categories like electronics, home and garden, and fashion. The implementation of this service will dramatically lessen the shipping burden on sellers, while improving the shopping experience and making unboxing fun for buyers.”
Thanks but no thanks Ebay. I’m perfectly qualified to handle my own inventory.
again fleecebay puts their grubby slimy paws deeper into a sellers pocket.
Nope, never
Fulfillment service ? ? ? ? ?
But….THEY HAVE NO PRODUCT ! ! !
WE ARE the “fulfillment service”.
OUR Clients and customers are very satisfied……
Wenig needs a Check Up from the Neck Up. He’s a nobody.
Then THROW HIM IN PRISON for FRAUD and DECEPTION ! ! ! !
For the life of me I don’t know why anyone would trust eBay with your product and then you’re supposed to trust eBay to ship on time and ship the correct items? If anything goes wrong they will put fault on the seller (doesn’t matter if they claim you’re protected, no such thing) and take no responsibility of their own. Because that’s how eBay works. Sounds more like a great plan by eBay to get more returns and seller punishments for eBay’s profit. And you’ll be paying eBay even more for this great fulfillment “privilege”! Money grab after money grab. More eBay hoops. It never ends.
I’m pretty sure there’s an “Oh Hell No!” that covers my feelings about this.
Is Wenig really this delusional?
His solution to stop Amazon and Shopify from devouring his company is to launch a fulfillment service 17 years after Amazon, and after Shopify announced this a long time ago?
This guy literally has no ideas at all, it’s watch what everyone else is doing the copy them years later.
Sellers are moving away from being dependent on eBay, not getting in deeper with them.
As a seller, I do not trust Wenig and his cronies. As soon as you sign up for this service they will jack up the fees like they normally do.
And the kicker? They’re not going to build their own warehouses. They’re going to subcontract it so third parties.
This will be a disaster.
It’s remarkable the mainstream sources covering this news as though it’s actually eBay doing the work and not simply outsourcing.
Outside of the obvious aping of Amazon, eBay’s lethargically slow-to-execute in the U.S. (even Etsy did this already) after many years of toying around, it’s unclear as to precisely which merchants “Managed Delivery” (kudos for not further ripping off Amazon and not calling it FBE?) on this long-simmering potential project of many years would actually benefit?
Growing SMBs and SMEs who sell through multiple marketplaces (and their own sites) are likely to already have their own 3PL/fulfillment partner (or their own warehouse and shipping operation).
This is an ‘operations’ endeavor, and frankly eBay sucks at execution.
Ebay doesn’t have substantive operations, logistics, supply chain, warehousing etc. bench strength and expertise in-house the way Amazon does, thus the success or failure of this initiative in many ways will depend on the 3PL(s) eBay selects as its partner(s), and thus far I haven’t seen any mention of who it/they are (although naturally Pitney Bowes has always seemed like a likely short-lister).
Those who don’t yet have the volume to justify using a fulfillment provider are almost certainly going to be better off finding their own service, rather than have eBay’s hooks deeper in their fulfillment operations and potentially limiting expansion to other channels or marketplaces, or controlling what collateral marketing material is permitted to be included in pack-out, for example).
Ebay does not pass-through any specially negotiated USPS rate savings to U.S. merchants (and presumably pockets the difference from what eBay pays to the USPS and what eBay sellers who use eBay’s labels pay to eBay) for easily accessible commercial rates any SMB has access to.
Similarly, it’s unlikely eBay is going to be able to offer extraordinarily competitive fulfillment rates as eBay is simply another intermediary middle-man who is going to expect their cut.
That is, of course, unless eBay subsidizes fulfillment rates the same way eBay subsidized their frequent sitewide flash sales last year, with the fees paid by *every* eBay seller going into a funding pool to offset Managed Delivery costs offered to eBay merchants participating in the program.