eBay today announced the launch of a preview version of eBay Express, a site that is more conventional than its online marketplace and one that the company"s largest and most experienced merchants were eagerly awaiting. eBay Express, announced in January, is now online in a preliminary format. During this preview period, which will last several weeks, eBay will gather feedback from buyers and sellers and make adjustments, eBay says.
With eBay Express, the company wants to cater to buyers who aren"t big fans of eBay"s marketplace, where shopping can be riskier, more complicated, and more time-consuming than on a regular online store such as Amazon.com. If the site meets expectations, it will reward eBay"s biggest and best merchants, which increasingly have competing selling platforms at their disposal and which have clashed with eBay over fee increases.