Product Bundle pilot now live on eBay UK

eBay have promised that they’ll be introducing a new cross promotion tool to the UK with a pilot program running in the Spring and if all goes according to schedule full roll out across the site in the summer. The pilot is now running with a small selection of about 30 sellers across a variety of categories and I have been given an early view of the new feature.
 
Known as “Product Bundles” the feature will enable sellers to offer accessories and add-on sales to buyers. You’ll also be able to offer discounts on accessories included in a Product Bundle, so where for example you might sell a camera for £250.00 and a lens for £100.00 you might offer the lens when sold at the same time as the camera for £75.00.
 
Setting up product bundles is relatively simple, but relies on Custom Labels, which are accessible through eBay TurboLister or Selling Manager Pro. To launch a product bundle there’s a configuration tool where you select a Primary SKU to attach products to, set a date range for the Product Bundle to run, and then select up to nine related items/SKUs. You can organise them into groups of similar items so if you were offering memory cards as an add on you could offer a 512mg, 1gig and 2gig selection for the buyer to choose from.

So far the results appear to be positive. I’ve had my first sale of a product bundle for a laptop docking station which sold for £5.25, but the buyer added on a power supply for an additional £8.00 and a power cable for another £2.00. That’s a 200% increase in the order value on a single transaction.
 
It’s fair to say that the buyer may have potentially purchased the additional items from me anyway, but having the items displayed on the view item page ensures that they’re purchased from me and eliminates the possibility of buyers purchasing from an alternative seller.
 

An example listing is for a with options to add a and . All three items are separate listings but can be purchased as add on sales directly on the listing.

Currently to be added into a Product Bundle accessories need to be offered with free postage, but the big advantage of Product Bundles is that you can discount from the item price to allow for combined postage.
 
Product Bundles are only available for fixed price items on eBay, but I can’t think of a category where they wouldn’t be suitable to some extent. They may also assist in Best Match placement as when an item is sold it’s then handled as an individual sale for invoicing and of course your inventory on eBay is automatically depleted.
 
For users of third party Channel Management software there should be no inventory issues as items are listed as normal and only once live on eBay are accessories associated with a primary product as a Product Bundle.
 
This is one of the best new features eBay have built for many years and should change the way that many sellers businesses are run. Rather than struggling to drive traffic to your eBay site and cross promote in your item description Product Bundles will enable you to promote add on sales right from the view item page.