eBay Runs New ‘Unlock the World’ Marketing Campaign

eBay Chief Financial Officer Steve Priest told Wall Street analysts on Wednesday that its International Shipping program was strategically important. The same day, eBay uploaded marketing videos to YouTube urging sellers to use the program, telling them, “Reach millions of buyers around the world, simply. eBay International Shipping: Unlock the World.”

Steve Priest made his remarks during the company’s 2nd-quarter earnings call, where eBay CEO Jamie Iannone elaborated on the importance of the program. “Why we’re excited by it is because 20% of the business on eBay is cross-border, but less than half of our big-three inventory is available to be shipped internationally. So opening up that inventory we think is a unique advantage for eBay and a unique value proposition for our sellers on the marketplace.” (“Big-three” appears to be a reference to its three largest geographic markets.)

eBay believes its new EIS international shipping program will help it increase cross-border trade, and the new marketing videos targeted at sellers share the tagline, “Unlock the World.”

A major stumbling block to increasing seller adoption of the program: international shoppers can’t combine multiple items into a single order. eBay told sellers on July 13 and again on July 25 that the problem was related to customs.

eBay uploaded to YouTube a 6-second video and a 25-second video titled, “eBay International Shipping: Boundless,” describing the videos as follows: “The love for all the great stuff you sell doesn’t stop at the border. So why should your stuff? Sell globally. Ship locally. Simply. Unlock the world with eBay International Shipping.”

eBay also uploaded a 6-second and a 27-second video titled, “eBay International Shipping: Notice,” describing them as follows: “Selling globally is now so easy, you might not even realize you’re doing it. Sell globally. Ship locally. With no customs or paperwork to deal with, you’ll simply unlock a world of buyers with eBay International Shipping.”

The videos link to a landing page on the eBay website describing the eBay International Shipping program.

Members of the eBay shipping team will be on hand during next week’s chat session to answer sellers’ questions about shipping, where sellers may again raise the issue of combined orders through International Shipping.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She’s a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of “Turn eBay Data Into Dollars” (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, “Blogging Heroes” (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 – present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 – present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.