EBay Bridges Online And High Street With Click & Collect Service In The UK, And eBay Now Goes Abroad

E-commerce giant eBay today made its latest moves to blur the lines between online and offline commerce, and it’s chosen the UK to do it: it launched a new “Click & Collect” service, where shoppers can buy goods from eBay online and then select a physical retail location in the UK where they can be delivered. On top of this, eBay said it will be bringing its same-day delivery option, eBay Now, to the UK, marking the its first push outside of the U.S. for the service.

“I’m pleased to share that our eBay Now service is coming to Europe, starting with London next year,” eBay president Devin Wenig announced in a presentation in London today.

This is eBay’s first commercial trial for Click & Collect, and it will be UK-only for now. eBay has been working on it for about a year already, and it will operate on two levels: for large retailers who have physical stores and also sell on eBay, they can now give users the option to pick up goods in those stores instead of having them delivered. For smaller eBay merchants, eBay has struck a deal with the Argos chain of stores for home goods for users to get their ordered goods delivered there.

The Argos deal will cover, at first, 150 UK stores and some 50 eBay merchants, Wenig said. The idea is that this will give consumers who do not want to buy certain items with delayed delivery more convenience in getting those goods more instantly, coupling that with the physical retail shopping they’re going to do anyway.

Meanwhile, it makes sense for eBay to expand eBay Now to international markets, which make up some 64% of the company’s total revenues in its marketplace division.

Up to today, eBay Now has been growing only in the U.S., first opening for business in San Francisco in August 2012. It now works in a few other cities, including Chicago, Dallas, and the wider New York and Bay Area regions. And eBay has also expanded eBay Now from a mobile-only product to one that also can be used on the desktop.

While eBay Now is a competitor against the likes of Amazon Prime and (to a lesser extent) Google Shopping Express, Click & Collect is more akin (but not the same as) the delivery locker services that these rivals have rolled out. Amazon Locker is live in the UK, while Google has yet to extend its BufferBox-fuelled service outside of the U.S. and Canada. Another UK competitor that works across more than just those walled gardens is My ByBox.

While different locker services give consumer the convenience of being able to get deliveries of online goods to secure locations without having to be around to sign for them, Click & Collect is attempting to do something more: it’s trying to get those consumers specifically into retail locations, where they may potentially do more shopping.

“This new way to shop — with different online merchants and collection at convenient locations — could create immense opportunities for sellers,” said Wenig today.

With Click & Collect, what’s not clear is whether those merchants are also working with Argos for the actual fulfilment of those orders. (In other words, if you buy a blender with an eBay merchant, does that merchant then ship the blender to Argos, or is it deducted from inventory at that Argos location? We’re reaching out to ask.)

The move is an interesting one both for eBay and for the physical stores with which it will partner.

For eBay, it brings the company closer to where most people are still spending the vast majority of their money. For example, stats out from the U.S. Census Bureau in August note that in Q2 of this year $64.8 billion was spent in e-commerce. But total retail sales were $1,126.2 billion. In other words, only 5.75% of retail sales in the U.S., one of the bigger e-commerce markets, are online.

But for brick-and-mortar retailers, the longer-term writing is on the wall. Online continues to grow faster than offline (5% versus 1%, says the USCB), and at a time when many physical retailers are seeing stagnant growth or even declines in sales, it’s important for brick-and-mortar companies to continue embracing avenues like the Internet to connect with users. You could argue that is was also part of the logic behind why another UK retailer, Tesco, yesterday announced its first tablet product, Hudl.

This is, by far, not eBay’s first move to connect better with the high street. PayPal’s here mobile payment solution puts eBay right at the point of sale for transactions with smaller merchants. And eBay has also created a touchscreen store window for Kate Spade Saturday to browse items, and check-in and QR Code services to quickly check for and buy items online.

I’m speaking directly to Wenig shortly and will update this story with more after that.