In a move to capture a sizeable portion of the festive season`s online shopping market, eBay has announced plans to consolidate its electronics listings into a single online store and to offer free shipping on some purchases.
The consolidation can be seen as the latest in the ongoing battle between eBay and rival e-tailer, Amazon.com.
While Amazon and eBay have had skirmishes before, they have largely co-existed as the two largest e-commerce sites. However, eBay has made no secret of its desire to use its platform for fixed-price sales, as well as auction-style purchases.
Reuters reports that the newly consolidated store - eBay Electronics - is aimed at both consumers and business buyers and features new and used items in the computer, networking, telecommunications, photography and video games categories.
"eBay has set very high goals for itself in terms of growth," says one market analyst. "If it`s going to meet them, it has to innovate and keep the site fresh and make it more attractive to sellers to list there."
Meanwhile, Internet shoppers taking advantage of late-autumn bargains in the US have helped jump-start the holiday season, as online shopping activity increased 12% during the first week of November.
Local e-tailers say they have yet to experience a major upswing, but agree that South African buyers tend to start their Christmas shopping later than their US and Australian counterparts.
Despite this, the majority of local online retailers are confident that there will be a vast improvement over last year`s figures.
A spokesman for retail giant, Makro, reckons that a very conservative growth estimate for this year on last year would be 45%. "It will probably be quite a lot higher than that, though," he says.
Online wine merchant, Cybercellar, has already witnessed a 250% increase on the previous year`s figures for September and October, and is predicting at least 200% growth for November and December.
"The 250% growth margin is slightly skewed, as last year`s sales took a huge knock following the events of 11 September, which is why we feel that 200% is a more realistic growth figure," says CEO Fiona Phillips.
Streetcar.com`s MD, Roan Hammond, says he expects the company to see an increase of around 300% on last year`s figures. "We are really anticipating a humdinger of a festive season."
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