eBay launches dedicated entertainment shopping service

Monday, September 11, 2017 - 09:29 by Mike Price

Customers of eBay who want to buy movies, videogames, books and music via safe shopping online will now be able to do so from within a new marketplace set up by the e-commerce giant.

The appropriately titled Entertainment Shop is setting out to sell both new and second hand products that appeal to fans of pop culture and as a result will be listing comics alongside traditional works of literature, to give an example of its target audience.

From the seller side of the equation, the marketplace is said to be easier to use and offers a reduced rate of commission on lots which are sold. This should help eBay to compete more effectively against Amazon, which has its own hugely influential marketplace.

In the past 12 months, eBay has handled over 830 million search queries relating to entertainment items, with physical media remaining highly sought after in spite of the rise of digital downloads and streaming services in recent years. It used this data to justify the launch of the Entertainment Shop as a standalone section of its site, thereby offering safe shopping online to a new but sizeable niche.

In addition to DVDs and Blu-Ray discs proving popular among auction fans and sellers alike, older formats including vinyl still attract millions of searches each year, with two classic LPs being sold on eBay every minute on average.

Company spokesperson, Rob Hattrell, said that eBay was going to establish itself as the one stop shop for physical media that UK customers can trust to throw up bargains. He also said that the country as a whole remains committed to physical media and that this trend was not going away any time soon, which is a confident assertion in the age of Netflix and Spotify.