eBay is offering a new service to anyone who buys a mobile phone on the marketplace. A deal with Red Pocket Mobile means every phone shopper has the option of adding a low-cost wireless plan for as little as $5 per month at checkout. eBay’s wireless partner, Red Pocket Mobile, is reportedly the only wireless brand that offers service on all of the major US cell networks.
Red Pocket Mobile is the natural partner for us to launch our add-on wireless plan. Because Red Pocket works on all of America’s major networks, their service can apply to virtually all of the millions of phones sold on eBay.
– David Grim, Category Manager, eBay
They note that the average American spends $80 monthly on their mobile phone bill and add that Red Pocket’s most popular plan, by contrast, is just $30 per month. That plan provides 5GB of LTE data plus unlimited data at slower speeds, along with unlimited talk, text, and international calling to over 70 countries. That’s plenty of data for most customers, they say. The average mobile user in America consumes 2.7GB of cellular data every month, according to Forbes. For the occasional user, Red Pocket’s Basic Plan on eBay provides 100 minutes, 100 texts and 500MB of LTE data on any major network for $5 per month.
Red Pocket is an eBay merchant in its own right and has already sold thousands of its Bring Your Own Phone starter kits on the marketplace. In feedback, customers are claimed to rate Red Pocket’s service as 4.9 out of 5 stars.
As will be obvious, this is an option that is currently only available in the United States and there is no information as to whether that will expand to other geographies any time soon. It’s also not entirely clear what the ‘value-add’ for merchants is with this deal and buyer offering.
