eBay have announced the launch of “Up & Running” their new accelerator program in the US. The program will help US retailers without any online presence set up online through eBay and is part of the marketplace’s $100 million pledge to support small businesses across North America.
“For the last 25 years, eBay has helped launch and grow hundreds of thousands of small businesses, and now we’ve created Up & Running to accelerate the start-up time frame for retailers opening online stores during these unprecedented times,”
“eBay was built on the simple premise that connecting buyers and sellers around the world creates economic opportunity, and this is exactly what we need to be doing – now more than ever.”
– Jordan Sweetnam, SVP eBay North America.
This particular program is one of the many ways eBay are working to ease the impact of the Coronavirus on businesses across the globe and is set to help the 70% of small businesses who do not yet have any online presence by offering tools and resources to get them up and running online successfully. Through “Up & Running” eBay are giving new businesses a free basic eBay store for three months, waiving their selling fees and allowing them to sell up to 500 items for free. Guidance, resources, marketing and merchandising tools will also be offered should it be needed.
Support for the UK and Australia
eBay in the UK have launched similar with their lifeline for small businesses. In this package no business joining eBay UK will have to pay any fees to list or sell until the 31st of May 2020. The offer will apply to 250 product listings each month – expected to mean that 99% of every new business-to-consumer seller listing on the site will be fee free until the end of May.
eBay in Australia have also launched a program to assist businesses with setting up online, the seller stimulus package helps new businesses set up on eBay with no selling fees for three months to help them establish their online presence or add a new channel alongside their website. The initiative aims to help thousands of SMBs and will give a much needed boost to the 57% of retail that is still offline in Australia.
