eBay First Physical Store Opened–Online Shopping Goes Offline?

Online retail giant eBay opened its first physical store in New York during this holiday season. According to WWD, the 5,500 square foot eBay store run for just a few days from November 20th to 29th, during the busiest shopping season of the year. The store housed the most popular items as well as high-end fashion items. The huge selection of



fashion items included the following: Norma Kamali’s exclusive fashions, L.A.M.B shoes, Michael Kors handbags, Dooney & Burke bags, Anthropologie dresses, M.A.C. cosmetics, etc. Other popular, hot items like sunvisor monitors parking sensors, headrest DVD Playerwere also sold during the period.

The opening of the physical store was celebrated on Nov. 19. And the big day for retailers—Black Friday also saw fervor of consuming in the store. To help boost the sales, limited numbers of “daily deals” were given to the first 100 shoppers who came to the store.

eBay is well noted for its prominent role in online retail. Is this brick-and-mortar store of eBay a herald of a new shift in online retail? As retailers came to realize the need for more creative solutions to the current stagnant sales, it is likely that the gap between online and offline retail will get more blurry. For consumers, presumably items displayed in online stores might get just more “touchable”.

Image source: www.shoppingblog.com