The online auction giant, that went on to become the worlds biggest and preferred online marketplace to buy, sell and trade has something new up its sleeves. It is planning to launch virtual store this month called shoppable windows and hopes that this new move will lead to generating more sales and revenue for the e-commerce giant. It is hoping that the increased traffic to the physical stores will lead to the boost in its own sales. The initial launch consists of 4 screens and will be featured from June 8 till july 7.
Great Idea
These screens will be placed mostly in the busiest parts of New York City which includes the lower east side and Soho. For now it will feature 30 items from a new fashion brand that is being launched by Fifth and Pacific Companies Inc. The screen dimensions will be 9 feet across and 2 feet wide. This is not a new feature which EBay is launching. In fact in around 2011 it tried experiment with such a method of window display in New York City. However those store screens did not have the feature to order products directly from the screen. This time EBay did differently. It added the new feature which would enable the window shoppers to order products and get them delivered at their homes directly from the screen.
Ease and Secure
The system is claimed to be quick, efficient and secure. It will be a courier service that will delivered the product ordered within an hour at your doorstep and the payment system will be through PayPal to ensure transparency and security. PayPal is an online mobile payment system developed by Ebay to facilitate payments online.
EBay’s “shoppable windows” are an extension of the shift to mobile shopping. This extends the boundary of the store. Suddenly the physical store, by virtue of online technology, extends to any space that’s interesting to use,” Steve Yankovich, head of the company’s Innovation and New Ventures group, which developed the technology, commented on this new development by Ebay.
Fifth & Pacific
For new brands such as the Fifth & Pacific this will be a terrific opportunity as they will be able to set up shop and expand their operations and outreach without opening a physical shop. This it believes will only be the requirement initially. As the brand takes off and matures then the need to open a shop would become necessary. The company is pleased with this technology and plans to implement Ebays idea in other of its existing stores and brands. This will perform the function of a liftover or boost for the other products and brands.
“This gives us the ability to produce more from our retail space,” McComb said. “My nickname for it is the Wall as a Mall.”
The other places that McComb plans to use these shopping screens is its brand named Juicy Couture which will offer the ability to choose and buy from around 200 different shoes. Quite a variety.
“We would never be able to fit all those products in a store in the traditional way,” McComb said. “These things would typically require an extra 10,000 square feet of store space. But through partnerships like this eBay one we could do this through stores that are 2,000 square feet.”
McComb is also hoping to use this technology in Kate Spades New York stores to sell home furnishings, bedding, linens and towels.
