eBay Promotes Reselling through ‘Bulq’ Sourcing

eBay invited sellers to use its platform for product sourcing through a new partnership with Optoro. eBay made the following announcement to sellers on Wednesday:

“Purchase wholesale lots through eBay’s exclusive partnership with BULQ®. Then sell those items—everything from clothing to electronics—on eBay, using generated listings with prefilled data.”

In an accompanying guide, eBay explained how it works as follows:

Here’s how it works:

• You purchase lots through our exclusive partnership with BULQ®
• Browse by category and condition on eBay.com
• Place your order and have it shipped right to your door
• List and resell the individual items on eBay
• Save time with generated listings with prefilled data

“It’s the easier way to source wholesale lots. Even if you’ve never done it before.”

Sellers can purchase from Bulq’s eBay Store. eBay is pitching the service as unique, telling sellers it’s making it easy for them to list:

“If you’ve purchased a BULQ lot, you will see a banner that will allow you to create draft listings with pre-filled information from your purchase. Additionally, from the “Create listing” dropdown you can select “Listings from BULQ® inventory” and select the lot you want to resell.” Following the creation of the generated draft listings, sellers use standard listing flows to complete the item creation process, it explained.

Sellers should pay attention to the following caveat: “Sellers should review all listings for accuracy prior to creating each item. Users of generated drafts will be responsible for the content of all listings.”

Optoro launched the B2B wholesale marketplace BULQ.com in 2015. According to its website, “We created BULQ to provide a better way to source returned and excess goods. Inventory comes direct from retailers. We guarantee you’ll receive what you bought. Pay with credit card and ship to your door. Get the info you need to make money, and do so consistently.”

It’s not known if eBay provides Bulq with special rates for selling on its marketplace, but clearly it sees benefits in driving sellers to product-source on eBay and then sell those items to consumers.

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/.