On Friday, eBay said its new site was a direct competitor to Amazon’s Prime offering and was not compatible with Amazon Prime’s free-to-try-offer.
“We’ve always said that we don’t want to be in a ‘Prime’ business, but that’s what Amazon has decided to do,” eBay Australia chief executive Rob Fergus said.
“Our goal is to deliver the best possible user experience and customer experience across our platforms.”
The move is aimed at pushing customers into eBay’s more expensive Prime service, which costs $99 a year, with the hope of attracting more loyal customers.
Mr Fergus says the decision has been made to keep prices lower than Amazon’s new Prime offering, which includes a $100-a-year membership, unlimited video chats and access to hundreds of new products and services.
EBay said it would continue to offer a free-trial for new customers.
However, Amazon’s free Prime offer starts on January 15 and will run until December 31.
“For some time, we’ve been talking with eBay about bringing our products to Prime, and this is the first step in that direction,” Mr Ferguson said.
“Our goal here is to bring our best products to you.”
Amazon has also launched a new search engine optimised for ebay customers, offering a similar search experience to Google’s.
The company says it has more than 20 million users around the world.
The search engine will now have a better interface for people searching for products, and a new feature called “Buy Now” will give customers the option to buy products as soon as they are available for delivery.
“It is a new era for Amazon, with more than a billion searches per month, and millions of new members joining the platform each day,” Mr Farrell said.
Mr Farrell says the new search results are a significant step towards helping ebay attract more loyal members.
While it has had some initial success, ebay is not a leader in search engine rankings and has struggled to compete with Google’s dominance.
Amazon’s Prime service costs $9.99 a month, but it offers a more personalised experience to its users.
It has access to an ever-expanding selection of products and includes a number of new features.
Mr Farrell says eBay is aiming to provide its customers with the best product and service, including Prime, at a price that’s competitive with Amazon.
He says he expects eBay to have a 30 per cent share of ebay sales by 2019.
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