Outside of the obvious aping of Amazon, eBay’s lethargically slow-to-execute in the U.S. (even Etsy did this already) after many years of toying around, it’s unclear as to precisely which merchants “Managed Delivery” (kudos for not further ripping off Amazon and not calling it FBE?) on this long-simmering potential project of many years would actually benefit?

Growing SMBs and SMEs who sell through multiple marketplaces (and their own sites) are likely to already have their own 3PL/fulfillment partner (or their own warehouse and shipping operation).

This is an ‘operations’ endeavor, and frankly eBay sucks at execution.

Ebay doesn’t have substantive operations, logistics, supply chain, warehousing etc. bench strength and expertise in-house the way Amazon does, thus the success or failure of this initiative in many ways will depend on the 3PL(s) eBay selects as its partner(s), and thus far I haven’t seen any mention of who it/they are (although naturally Pitney Bowes has always seemed like a likely short-lister).

Those who don’t yet have the volume to justify using a fulfillment provider are almost certainly going to be better off finding their own service, rather than have eBay’s hooks deeper in their fulfillment operations and potentially limiting expansion to other channels or marketplaces, or controlling what collateral marketing material is permitted to be included in pack-out, for example).

Ebay does not pass-through any specially negotiated USPS rate savings to U.S. merchants (and presumably pockets the difference from what eBay pays to the USPS and what eBay sellers who use eBay’s labels pay to eBay) for easily accessible commercial rates any SMB has access to.

Similarly, it’s unlikely eBay is going to be able to offer extraordinarily competitive fulfillment rates as eBay is simply another intermediary middle-man who is going to expect their cut.

That is, of course, unless eBay subsidizes fulfillment rates the same way eBay subsidized their frequent sitewide flash sales last year, with the fees paid by *every* eBay seller going into a funding pool to offset Managed Delivery costs offered to eBay merchants participating in the program.

His solution to stop Amazon and Shopify from devouring his company is to launch a fulfillment service 17 years after Amazon, and after Shopify announced this a long time ago?

This guy literally has no ideas at all, it’s watch what everyone else is doing the copy them years later.

Sellers are moving away from being dependent on eBay, not getting in deeper with them.

As a seller, I do not trust Wenig and his cronies. As soon as you sign up for this service they will jack up the fees like they normally do.

And the kicker? They’re not going to build their own warehouses. They’re going to subcontract it so third parties.

This will be a disaster.