eBay’s UK head office at Richmond and Rob Hattrell, VP of eBay UK, have been busy setting up an additional eBay Click & Collect network for their sellers and buyers which will add thousands of new collection points across the country.
PayPoint and eBay have signed a strategic partnership that will enable eBay sellers and buyers to access the Collect+ network for convenient click and collect parcel services. This landmark deal sees eBay become the first multi-carrier partner for CollectPlus signed by PayPoint. eBay customers will also be able to have their deliveries to Collect+ locations made by their own choice of carrier service.
eBay will initially access 2,500 selected stores within the CollectPlus network of 7,000 stores in time for the start of the busy peak season – from the beginning of October, ready for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the Christmas period – with the intention to expand across the rest of the network. Whether for a Black Friday bargain or an auctioned antique, eBay customers will now have a more convenient way to receive their parcels.
“24 million customers shop with us every month. We want to make it as convenient as possible for them to get the item they’re looking for. Our partnership with CollectPlus is a great boost to our delivery options for sellers, giving customers thousands more locations to choose from when they are shopping.”
– Rob Hattrell, VP of eBay UK
“This is an exciting opportunity for our retailer network and for CollectPlus as the definitive Click and Collect solution for UK online merchants with the potential for millions of extra parcels for our store network. Convenience stores play such an important role in local communities, providing simple and convenient solutions for those with busy lives. The reach of our network ensures we’re available wherever and whenever our customers need us, – especially given the increasingly blurred lines between online and offline shopping.”
– Dominic Taylor, CEO of PayPoint
The first stores offering services to eBay customers are expected to go live in October 2018.
8 Responses
“24 million customers shop with us every month” Is that UK customers?
Current population is 66,600,878. Give or take one or two!
I have been using Collect+ with ebay for years, but I havent a clue who or what paypoint is? did I miss something?
Great that eBay are expanding buyer choice. This needs to be done — like GSP etc — in a way that is almost invisible to the seller — just an address change and no more hassle.
However it’s clear the click and collect is definitely more hassle. Already we’ve had tow deliveries this week refused by cnc locations with the buyer going incandescent with us as a result. All cnc buyers elect for free postage so there’s nothing in it for us. We’re seriously considering turning it off as we think that it’s being over-promoted in checkout.
By all means roll out an initiative but provide sufficient support for buyers that they are helped by eBay and not the sellers when ebay’s cnc service goes wrong.
C&C is a bit more hassle than GSP, just because a few more things going wrong for one reason or another. Though I’ve not seen refusal of delivery by a collection point myself, I can remember Sainsburys opening some of our packages when they first joined up to ebay C&C. In both these cases, it’s down to a lack of staff awareness at these 3rd party partners, something ebay can’t do much about.
Ebay over-promoting C&C is another problem. If you click “postage details” for an item on a PC, it gives you the C&C stores first and a buy it now option/add to cart. Underneath that, and perhaps not even viewable on the page depending on the monitor size, is the post to me option.
I’m sure this overpromotion of C&C is the reason some buyers purchase items that are low value, small enough to fit through a letterbox and don’t require a signature, but get them sent to a C&C point instead of their home address. There is no logical reason for them to do this, unless they think it’s what they have to do, and the only reason they’d think that, is ebay shoves C&C in their face so much that they think it’s the only choice.
Ebay should be doing more to highlight to buyers that while C&C is an option that might benefit them, it will not always be the best option. A 6 mile round trip to pick up a £3 item that would have fitted through your letterbox is a low quality buyer experience and ebay should want to avoid that happening. Potentially, it could be putting people off and sending them to other sites.