eBay has launched a dedicated shop for books, film, music and games that it says it comes in response to growing consumer demand.
With the move eBay appears to be challenging marketplaces including the UK’s largest online retailer Amazon – which started out as an online bookstore. eBay is bidding to become the “new home of physical media”. Today it launches The Entertainment Shop, a curated on-site destination featuring new and pre-owned physical media sold by brands, retailers and individual sellers.
At the same time, eBay is promising lower fees and a better user experience to sellers, from publishers, producers and wholesalers and B2C sellers, in a bid to win more of the market, whose value it puts at £3.8bn in 2016. It says physical media is one of the most popular categories on eBay, with more than 830m searches for physical media, over the last year, up by more than 27m on the previous year. In the year to July 2017 there were 8m more searches for vinyl records, in particular, than the previous year, with searches for books, comics, magazines, and DVDs also rising. It says 13 DVDs and Blu-ray discs were bought every minute in the year to July 31 2017, along with two vinyl records and nine video games and consoles.
eBay UK vice president Rob Hattrell said:: “We want to be THE destination for physical media in the UK driven by best value, unrivalled inventory and competitive seller fees. The first item ever sold on eBay UK was a Scorpions CD in 1999 for £2.89 and now we are home to some of the world’s largest suppliers of books, music, film and games. The launch of The Entertainment Shop is a natural progression for eBay that will offer brands and sellers of all sizes the opportunity to capitalise on the UK’s enduring appetite for physical media.”
