eBay has announced that it will now expand eBay Now’s same-day delivery services Monday, battling with online rival company Amazon, on which between them will dominate the local online business in the market.
eBay Now commits to deliver products from stores including Walgreen, Best Buy, and Target in as fast as one hour. The program was launched in 2012 in the San Jose and San Francisco, California, and in Manhattan, New York.
The online shopping site is planning to expand the services in the Brooklyn and Queens area in New York, and in the Bay Area peninsula, in-between San Jose and San Francisco. Later this summer, Dallas and Chicago will be added to the service area, and may even be expanded to outside the United States in the near future, say executives from eBay in their announcements last week.
eBay matched Amazon’s building of warehouses that are closer to consumers, that could help the online company to give faster delivery.
eBay does not own an inventory, and avoids managing warehouses as much as possible, is now planning to partner with retailers to make a network of active physical stores, which will operate as a distribution hub and mini storage plant for purchases.
Ron Josey, analyst from JMP Securities said that this is eBay’s response to Amazon’s procuring fulfillment centers that are much nearby buyers. Both online giant retailers are going after the newest cutting edge in electronic commerce, around 75 percent of consumer spending that occurs in the 15 million homes.
In the United States, this accounts to a $2-trillion market annually, including products suited for immediate household shopping, just like groceries, health and beauty products, cleaning items, says the estimates from JP Morgan.
If Amazon and eBay, and other online retailers can deliver their items hastily, they have more chances of grabbing a bigger part of the local business market.
