eBay announced today that starting in early May, inventory from Half.com will become available through eBay.com. The company says it is giving sellers an advance warning 60 days notice.
This could be a move to get people paying attention to the company’s other properties as eBay.com continues to be heavily criticized. They also recently announced more focus on their PayPal property.
Sellers pay attention. A post on the eBay Ink blog says the addition of Half.com listings to eBay is happening for two “critical” reasons:
1. We are testing a product-based experience in the media (books, music, movies, and video games) categories. For buyers, a product-based experience will make it faster and easier for them to find what they are looking for. For our sellers, a product-based experience will save them time and make it easier to list an item. Given these benefits, Our hope is to move this experience across the site for categories with a significant number of listings utilizing product details. Before doing so, we have to understand how our buyers will interact with this type of experience. To properly test this experience, we need to ensure significant SKU breadth and depth. A positive reaction to this test from our buyers would be a big step towards eliminating insertion fees in certain categories.
2. Great values in Media are a tremendous traffic driver for the entire site. Increasing our selection with the great values available on Half.com benefits all sellers regardless of category.
eBay listings are already displayed at Half.com
Consumers will be able to find Half.com listings on eBay, but individual listings will not be searchable (eBay.com sellers’ listings will still be). Media sellers can pay a $.05 insertion fee for items on eBay or sell with no insertion fee through Half.com yet still be found on eBay.
In other eBay news, the company has announced its intentions of pursuing a stock option exchange program. This would allow employees to trade underwater options for restricted stock units.
