eBay Lokal introduced in Germany

eBay is launching a new shopping and selling experience in Germany called eBay Lokal. Commercial sellers can gain greater visibility through eBay Lokal and offer consumers the opportunity to buy from them locally online.

The company states that it has significantly enhanced the visibility and discoverability of locally available items, both in search results and in other places on eBay.de. In addition, a variety of processes have been revised, and product changes have been introduced to make local selling, buying, and collecting as easy as possible. A new central web location has also been created for local search and browsing.

The local trade trend

With this new feature, eBay appears to be responding to the growing trend of local trade activities on social media. According to Oliver Klinck, eBay Germany’s managing director, the American company is addressing a significant market need. He explains: “With eBay Lokal, we address the need of many buyers and sellers to buy and sell products locally online.”

Klinck refers to eBay’s elimination of fees for private sellers in March this year, which led to a surge in private-to-private trading on the platform. Now, eBay is taking the next step.

‘We want to strengthen neighborhood trade and the desire to trade in general.’

Map-based local browsing

To make local shopping even more appealing, eBay will also begin a test phase for a map-based local browsing experience in a few weeks. Users will be able to see on a map where specific items are available in their area.

Retailers with local  brick-and-mortar stores can attract more customers to their stores through eBay Lokal and benefit from cross-selling and up-selling opportunities through online purchases with local pickup.

Cash on pickup

eBay had previously hinted at the introduction of eBay Lokal when it announced the discontinuation of cash on pickup earlier this month. The company stated that new self-collection functionality would “improve the purchasing experience” in the coming weeks, without specifying further details at that time.