eBay has today announced its ambition to be the new home of physical media with ‘The Entertainment Shop’ – a new dedicated category hub launched today. The curated on-site destination will be an extensive and vibrant selection of new, catalogue and pre-owned books, film, music and games across its marketplace from brands and sellers around the world.
The Entertainment Shop will serve as a one-stop shop for physical media offering great value and an unrivaled selection across categories with an emphasis on new releases. eBay has already established new partnerships with major studios to support retailers with new releases. Existing major sellers of books, DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs and Video Games, including musicMagpie, Wordery and Entertainment Alliance will also be enhancing their offers in line with eBay’s proposition.
eBay’s physical media offer will deliver lower listing fees to publishers, producers, wholesalers and B2C sellers looking to grow their business and connect with eBay’s 23 million buyers in the UK. eBay will offer competitive marketplace fees, improved user experience, and prime marketing and advertising opportunities to support a weekly cycle of new releases.
Sales of physical media are buoyant – Music, TV shows, Films, Computer Games and Books were worth an estimated £3.8bn annually in the UK in 2016. Physical media is one of the most popular categories on eBay. Over the last year there have been more than 830 million searches for physical media, a net year-on-year increase in searches of over 27 million.
eBay is already one of the world’s largest marketplaces for music and the resurgence of vinyl has created huge demand for new and pre-owned items. In the last year (July 2016 – July 2017) there were 8 million more searches for vinyl records and two new and pre-owned records were sold every minute on eBay.co.uk between 31st July 2016 and 31st July 2017. Searches for Books, Comics & Magazines on eBay rose by more than 12 million since last year, and searches within the DVD, Film & TV categories were over 65 million. 13 DVDs and Blu-ray discs were bought every minute and nine video games and consoles were purchased every minute.
Rob Hattrell, eBay UK’s Vice President commented: “We want to be THE destination for physical media in the UK driven by best value, unrivalled inventory and competitive seller fees. The first item ever sold on eBay UK was a Scorpions CD in 1999 for £2.89 and now we are home to some of the world’s largest suppliers of books, music, film and games. The launch of The Entertainment Shop is a natural progression for eBay that will offer brands and sellers of all sizes the opportunity to capitalise on the UK’s enduring appetite for physical media.”
Share