EBay has discontinued its eBay Now same-day delivery service, according to a company blog post. The online marketplace also announced it will close down multiple standalone mobile applications, including eBay Valet, eBay Fashion and eBay Motors. In retiring the mobile apps, eBay plans to migrate these functionalities into its flagship eBay app.
The company is undergoing a transformation in an attempt to narrow the focus on its online marketplace, with the blog post indicating that these closures are the “first phase of their sunset plans.” News of the closures follow eBay’s sale of its Enterprise business for $925 million and its official split from PayPal.
When the eBay Now service launched in 2012, customers in New York, Chicago, Dallas, and parts of the San Francisco Bay Area were able to access same-day delivery of items from local merchants via couriers.
EBay also is discontinuing a local pilot program in Brooklyn, NY that started in December 2014 and offered same-day delivery from approximately 80 local merchants. Both eBay Now and the Brooklyn program will officially stop service on July 31.
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The company initially shut down the eBay Now mobile app in November 2014, bringing the program’s delivery capabilities and many participating merchants’ inventory into its core mobile apps.
“While we saw encouraging results with the eBay Now service, we always intended it as a pilot,” said RJ Pittman, Chief Product Officer of eBay, in the post. “We are now exploring delivery and pick-up/drop-off programs that are relevant to many more of our 25 million sellers, and that cover a wider variety of inventory that consumers tell us they want.”
EBay will continue to pilot scheduled delivery in the UK, according to the post.
Most of the employees affected by the eBay Now shutdown will be reassigned elsewhere in the company, an eBay spokesperson told CNET.
