eBay Launches a Social Shopping Experience
As it predicts the Busiest Online Shopping Day - Sunday 2nd December
On what is set to be the UK’s busiest online shopping weekend, eBay Social Shopping – the UK’s first interactive, socially powered shopping experience – will land in London’s Covent Garden from Friday 30th November to Sunday 2nd December.
Harnessing the influencing power of social media, eBay Social Shopping will bring together product recommendations from social networks including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with eBay’s own unrivalled search data, to provide a live pulse of what the nations really wants this Christmas.
New research* has found that almost half of all Brits (47%) now turn to friends for help when making shopping decisions, including via social media channels. And with a quarter of people (23%) planning to do Christmas shopping via smartphones and tablets, the relationship between social media and mobile shopping has never been stronger.
Open on what eBay predicts to be its busiest online shopping day, Sunday 2nd December, when six million people are expected to log onto eBay.co.uk, visitors to eBay’s Christmas social shopping experience will be able to:
- Discover what the nation really wants this Christmas with a real-time barometer of the UK’s most talked about gifts and products, powered by Twitter
- See this year’s must-have toys come to life in the palm of your hand, with augmented reality technology
- Find the perfect gadget for IT and tech lovers in 3D
- Get advice from virtual personal shoppers for gifting quandaries and dilemmas via Facebook
- Browse and shop throughout the experience using a smartphone
- Give a little to help a lot, with charity Good Gifts interactive Advent Calendar full of Christmas gifts supporting a host of worthy causes
Ebay Social Shopping combines peer to peer recommendations and third wave mobile technologies with eBay’s unrivalled product selection as the UK’s leading online shopping destination predicts this year to be a socially inspired record-breaking mobile Christmas.
Carrie Bienkowski, Head of Buyer Experience, commented:
“By pairing views of social communities with eBay’s own vast selection of top Christmas gifts and mobile expertise we hope to give shoppers lots of inspiration and put a little bit of fun into Christmas shopping.
“Mobile technology is a catalyst for retail growth and is changing the way we shop. Consumers now carry a global showroom in their pocket and are increasingly as inclined to seek recommendations online and shop mobile as visit the high street. At eBay we expect 2012 to be our most successful mobile Christmas ever with around 30%** of the most popular Christmas products being brought through a smartphone.”
Whether shoppers own a smartphone or not, they can come down to Covent Garden to experience eBay Social Shopping and use one of the tablets provided. Consumers can also enter into a prize draw to become an eBay Nectar Millionaire, celebrating the arrival of nectar points to the site. One lucky visitor will win a million nectar points (equivalent to £5,000) to help reduce the Christmas shopping bill!
To find out more go to www.facebook.com/eBay.co.uk
For further statistics and data, or to speak to an eBay spokesperson, please contact the eBay press office at
Shine Communications on 020 7100 7100/ eBayteam@shinecom.com
Notes to Editors:
eBay in the UK
- Founded in 1999, eBay.co.uk is the UK’s largest online marketplace, providing a platform for over 17 million unique visitors per month[1] to buy and sell new, unique and used items.
- There are around 60 million live listings on the UK site, which has tripled from 20 million in 2009.[2]
- One in two online buyers in the UK visits eBay.co.uk every month.[3]
- eBay.co.uk receives around as many visitors per month as London’s Oxford Street.[4]
- Nearly twice as many people visit eBay.co.uk every month than visit the UK’s four leading shopping centres in the same period.[5]
- eBay is consistently one of the most visited UK retail sites, with around a 15% share of total UK online shopping visits.[6]
- 190,000 registered businesses are currently trading on the site – up from 120,000 in 2009.
eBay mobile
- eBay mobile applications are available in more than 190 countries and eight languages.
- Globally, eBay is predicting $10 billion of transactions taking place via a mobile device in 2012.
- In 2011, eBay transacted $5 billion through mobile devices, an overall increase of 150% from 2010.
- eBay mobile apps have been downloaded over 90 million times globally.
- In the UK an item is purchased every second on eBay via a mobile device.
- The most expensive items recently bought on eBay mobile in the UK were a Porsche 911 Carrera and Land Rover Evoque both being purchased for around £40,000.
SOURCES:
- * Onepoll research commissioned by eBay – December 2012
- **eBay forecast data and Columino research commissioned by eBay – Oct 2012
[1] Nielsen Netview March 2012
[2] eBay internal data (Daily Live Listing Count)
[3] Six out ten adults shop online (OECD report, The Future of the Internet Economy, 2012)
[4] London Oxford Street has on average 18.49 million visitors a month (Westminster City Council).
[5] Bluewater, 2.3 million average visitors a month; Lakeside, 2 million average visitors a month; Westfield Stratford, 3.87 million average visitors a month; Westfield London, 2.25 million average visitors a month. (Data from their own websites).
[6] Experian Hitwise August 11, 2012