Online marketplace eBay has confirmed plans to bolster its presence in the apparel industry, following last month’s partnership deal with high-end fashion retailer Spring.
On a conference call with analysts yesterday (18 October) in the wake of the its third-quarter earnings, eBay was quizzed about one of its larger competitors becoming more competitive in the fashion category, an area that has been historically strong for eBay, and asked what initiatives it was taking to “cement its competitive mode.”
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“We normally don’t dive into categories. But what I would say is we’ve had aggressive plans for quite a while in fashion, including our Spring partnership, but so many other things to bring in new brands in fashion,” Devin Wenig, CEO of eBay, responded.
“And if I look back on Q3, we saw acceleration in…fashion. I don’t take competition for granted one bit. But the things that we’re doing are about building our own company our own way, differentiated and having a meaningful share of global total retail and we’re doing that.”
Last month the company announced plans to collaborate with Spring, an online marketplace dedicated to the fashion industry, in a move that provides eBay’s 171m customers globally with access to brands including Rag & Bone, Mango and Chloe.
At the time the partnership was announced, eBay discussed the growing trend of retailers partnering instead of competing.
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By GlobalDataIn yesterday’s call, Wenig said the company would consider more partner deals in the future.
“We’re off to a great start with our recently announced partnership with Spring. We’ll be opportunistic depending on the category. We’re very focused on bringing differentiated inventory to the marketplace. So, if a partnership can help us with that, we’ll certainly look at it.”
