eBay takes on Amazon with new Entertainment Store

eBay is set to launch a dedicated storefront for entertainment products, including books, as it bids to become “the destination for physical media in the UK”.

The online marketplace giant is appealing to the book trade to help grow the number of new titles on offer in The Entertainment Store, set to open in November, as it makes a play to challenge Amazon with an offer “driven by best value, unrivalled inventory and competitive seller fees”.

The e-commerce giant is encouraging booksellers, publishers and wholesalers to list more new releases for sale as third party retailers in the new store after seeing demand from customers soar.

In return, eBay will offer suppliers lower listing fees and “prime marketing and advertising opportunities to support a weekly cycle of new releases”, the company said.

Between July 2016 – July 2017 there were more than 170 million searches in the Books, Comics & Magazines category on ebay.co.uk - an increase of more than 12 million on the previous year, the company revealed. At the same time, over 23 books, comics or magazines were purchased on eBay.co.uk every minute during that period while 1.4m children’s and young adults’ books were bought, the company told The Bookseller.

The increase in book searches on eBay coincides with the revival of print books, sales of which from UK publishers increased 8% in 2016 to £2.97bn, according to the Publishers Association’s Annual Yearbook statistics. Meanwhile sales of trade e-books fell by 17% to £204m last year.

Rob Hattrell, eBay UK’s vice president 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.”

Many independent booksellers are already trade as third party retailers on eBay, along with companies such as the Connect Books-owned Wordery.

Wordery has worked with eBay to “enhance its offer” on the platform in time for the launch of The Entertainment Store, the company said.

Murray Lambell, v.p. of trading for eBay UK, said the store would sell second hand and antiquarian books but that it was particularly keen to list more frontlist titles.

eBay will work with retailers to guide them on “how to drive the velocity they would like to see,” Lambell said, but it is up to the third party retailers to list the books, set the prices and handle delivery.

“We want to talk to the industry about the potential of the opportunity, whether that be high street booksellers wanting to grow their business from what they sell in store,” he said.

The Entertainment Store will offer regular customer promotions such as “Daily Deals” and has big pushes planned for Black Friday and in the run up to Christmas.