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EBay India Officially Joins The Refurbished Good Market

Sep. 05, 2015 7:37 AM ETEBAY
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In the growing Indian market, along with all the other e-commerce giants, eBay has finally made its move to officially become a part of the rat race and introduced its refurbished goods category.

In the coming years to come, India is the next biggest market for the e-commerce firms after the United States and China. For online retailers, India is the place to be if they are looking to increase their revenues and generate more profits. Question remains whether eBay, the San-Jose based online shopping company take advantage of this potential market.

Recently, eBay India has launched a category on its website for refurbished goods in which they have partnered with a number of companies including My Return Solutions, GreenDust, Budli and other five as well. This step was taken by the retail company in hopes of increasing and boosting its sales in that part of the world. By the year 2016, the online shopping market is expected to increase and grow from $2 billion to $8.5 billion which according to Boston Consulting and the Retailers Association might reach $33 billion by the year 2020.

The American Multinational has jumped into this category of refurbished good a little late in the Indian Market as 24 per cent of business all around the world comes from its refurbished goods category. Other e-commerce online shopping companies including the retail giant Amazon.com and Snapdeal, an online marketplace in India, are expected to launch their very own refurbished goods category soon, as they stated earlier this month. This is the new strategy of these online based companies by providing their users with new categories; they are aiming at attracting new customers.

eBay Store in India, for now, is focusing on providing its customers with refurbished and secondhand items that include tablets, mobiles and laptops but eventually, as stated by the company, it plans to expand its offerings. By the end of December, the firm assures that it will offer more goods in its refurbished category like home appliances that include vacuum cleaners, washing machines, ovens etc. These goods are basically professionally repaired or restored items that can be sold again as they are not necessarily secondhand and they also come with a warranty.

According to the Vice President and Director of eBay, Latif Nathani, the Indian market is likely to grow to $7 billion by the end of the current year whereas the refurbished market is expect to grow by $15 billion by the end of the year. He added that initially eBay did sell refurbished goods in the Indian market but since it did not have any organized players or a specific category for them, it did not do that well. Approximately 4% of the company's business came from refurbished or secondhand products. He said that 10 per cent of the items on their website are either refurbished or used and by the end of the year they expect the number to increase to about 20%.

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