SAN JOSE, Calif. – EBay’s name is synonymous with auctions, but that’s created an image problem for the online marketplace.
These days, most of the things people purchase on the site aren’t sold through auctions; they have fixed prices. And, the majority of items for sale are new – not musty antiques or old collectibles.
Richelle Parham, eBay Inc.’s chief marketing officer, says plenty of people see eBay as an auction-focused marketplace, despite the reality.
“We need to change that perception,” she says.
The company wants to be seen as an e-commerce innovator, rather than a staid auction site. To promote that image, eBay is embarking on a major ad campaign aimed at consumers who shop on smartphones. At the same time, eBay hopes it will change consumers’ misperceptions about the company.
The campaign, eBay’s first big marketing effort in several years, comes in the midst of a multiyear effort to improve the buying and selling experience on eBay.com. It’s the 16-year-old company’s first campaign to focus on mobile shopping – a still-small, but rapidly growing revenue source. The company was one of the first to offer an iPhone app through Apple Inc.’s App Store when it opened in mid-2008, and in the last three years, eBay’s various smartphone and tablet apps have been downloaded more than 50 million times.
People aren’t just using the apps to browse. They’re buying. In 2010, the value of goods purchased from the site using mobile devices totaled $2 billion.
This year, eBay predicted that figure would double, and mobile vice president Steve Yankovich says the company will unquestionably top its $4 billion goal.
Mobile apps are bringing in new users, too. Between January and July, nearly 500,000 new eBay shoppers joined up and made their first purchase via mobile.
“We’re seeing more people on their mobile devices,” says Parham. “More people are shopping anywhere.”
Given this, eBay is emphasizing the idea that people can shop on its site anytime, anywhere, for anything.
The new TV commercials and other ads for eBay are geared toward three types of mobile-happy shoppers it identified through market research: the fashionista, the electronics junkie and the auto parts and accessory fan, all of whom are in different situations when shopping inspiration strikes.
Parham says these three kinds of consumers were chosen as the focus, in part, because they tend to own smartphones.
In one commercial, for example, a man named Pete attends a meeting where co-workers mock him for being the only person in the board room without a tablet computer.
One colleague, to show how out-of-date Pete is, cries out, “Me Pete, me use pen!”
Another arrives late saying, “Sorry I’m late – I was in the 16th century looking for Pete’s pen.”
Pete deals with the criticism by whipping out his smartphone and buying a tablet on eBay, and the commercial ends with his pen leaking blue ink all over his shirt pocket.
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