eBay announced this afternoon that it will be buying same-day courier marketplace Shutl. President of eBay Marketplaces Devin Wenig made the announcement at a special press conference in New York City this afternoon.
Exact details of the deal, such the sum paid, have not been disclosed and any indications of future plans are hazy. But the direction of travel is clear: eBay is serious about same-day delivery in the UK and across the US.
I first wrote about Shutl last year when I heard the impressive Tom Allason speak. Allason has written about the deal on his company blog.
Shutl started offering same-day, even same-hour delivery slots in London several years ago and has expanded to serve other locations and this year took on several cities in the US. It pays to think of them more of a pizza delivery company than the Royal Mail or a courier. The clear synergy with eBay Now is obvious and with this deal it looks like eBay’s ambitions are pretty big.
What is fascinating and important is that with this deal eBay has taken a big leap ahead of Amazon in the same-day stakes here in the UK. Stateside, Amazon has been building a new infrastructure to accomdate faster deliveries. But over here has been less speedy. Shutl already has the basics of London same-day sewn up already.
One quite critical question is also unanswered: how can an eBay/Shutl hook-up be useful for Marketplace sellers, especially smaller ones who aren’t High Street retailers? eBay Now is not part of the eBay Marketplace. Rather it’s a stand-alone eBay branded service with access to just a handful of retailers. It would be interesting to hear if and how, this could be rolled out to help eBay sellers faster and more alluring merchants.
18 Responses
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Assumably their max’ distance in the UK of 50 miles will not work….
And with rates of between £92-£160 for a 50 mile journey they may be tad expensive….
https://uk.shutl.it/orders
A great acquisition by eBay, look forward to seeing how this plays out for business sellers and the buyer experience.
I notice that shutl cannot manage the 1-hour delivery that eBay want to offer.
I tried getting a quote for a short journey (less than 1.5 miles, within the centre of Edinburgh, booking at 14:15). They claim to collect within 74 minutes and deliver within 135 minutes. They charge £6 for this (or £12 for collections after 19:45).
Once time for the order being processed by the merchant is taken into account then a 1-hour service looks even less likely.
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There booking system seems to have some flaws. If I book a collection between 14:45 and 16:00 they claim that the delivery will be between 16:00 and 17:00 (for the example above). If a dedicated vehicle is being used for this service, and the item collected towards the beginning of the delivery window, then the delivery would happen a lot sooner than quoted.
I get a quote of £41 on an item for a motorbike. 10 miles up the road.
For that price may as well do it yourself.
1.5 miles by road in the centre of Edinburgh can take most of the Day, edinburgh traffic lights can stay on red for weeks ,it s quicker to walk
For any of this we are talking about peeps with the money but without the time. It’s a very very small market and only likely to be profitable for high end sellers.
I suppose that eBay can aspire to that but they must have lost their most recent focus.
Trying to be all things to all people is not going to end well.
And it does take a unique type of outfit to even dream of ruling the world. (I had to think for a long time to put it just that way!)
I don’t agree that it’s a small market. Let alone a very very small one. If we accept in the short term that eBay Now and the Shutl absorption is the start… we are talking very many millions of potential shoppers. It’s gonna take them a year or so to grow that.
And there are lots of time poor money rich people who will pay for this. The US eBay Now experience (which I have written about) is instructive.
And also remember: this isn’t for eBay sellers at all. Currently eBay Now is just for retailers. As I noted in the article.
I would like to know how they expand that. But as yet. Not something that the average eBay seller is gonna get anything from.
eBay will seek to be profitable… as any corp must.
I didn’t mention eBay sellers. Just high end sellers and eBay trying to be all things to all people.