Online retail giant eBay has announced a new program to help small businesses and physical retailers who may be struggling to keep their operations running due to the coronavirus pandemic.
With many bricks-and-mortar retailers forced to close, eBay has launched a new program called Up & Running to move some part of their business online.
Under this initiative, eBay has pledged $100 million to support small businesses across the United States, and will waive seller fees for new members if they set up their online store till June 30.
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eBay has also offered to suspend its monthly fee, which for a basic account is $21.95 and $299 for an anchor account, for three months, and will offer access to a community of similar retailers, advice and insights about selling online, individual support, and educational webinars.
Supporting businesses
eBay says that these resources will be helpful in creating a successful business, and that it will promote these new stores by highlighting them on its homepage.
There are some caveats, as eBay is only offering the seller fee waiver for the first 500 products listed and sold, and the waiver as a whole is limited to business accounts and based on eBay’s assessment.
“For the last 25 years, eBay has helped launch and grow hundreds of thousands of small businesses, and now we’ve created Up & Running to accelerate the start-up time frame for retailers opening online stores during these unprecedented times,” said Jordan Sweetnam, SVP eBay North America.
“eBay was built on the simple premise that connecting buyers and sellers around the world creates economic opportunity, and this is exactly what we need to be doing – now more than ever,” he added.
The Up & Running program follows a retail revival program started by eBay in 2018, which looks to help stores reach a broader audience online.
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Via: eBay
