eBay has announced the rollout of a new end-to-end fulfilment service for UK sellers.

British businesses operating on the online marketplace will now have access to fulfilment centres in Leicester and Birmingham, where goods can be stored, packed, and delivered.

The company said that the new service, which is similar to Amazon’s longstanding fulfilment operation, has been launched in response to the significant growth in online shopping over the past year and the rising demand from small companies looking to scale their business.

Participating sellers will be able to use fulfilment for orders that are sold on eBay or their shops on other online platforms.

eBay UK is collaborating with global logistics firm, Orange Connex, to launch the service, which will enable sellers on eBay to offer next-day delivery, same-day handling, a fully tracked service and late cut-off times to buyers.

Managed through a central integrated platform, sellers will also have full seller protection for delivery-related mishaps.

For international orders, sellers participating in the Global Shipping Programme will be able to fully integrate with the fulfilment centres using eBay fulfilment, with plans to roll this out more widely in the near future.

“We know that managing space and storage for inventory can be one of the biggest pain points for our sellers, while an increasingly competitive retail environment means that consumers expect faster and more transparent delivery times,” said Murray Lambell, general manager, eBay UK. “eBay fulfilment by Orange Connex sets out to address these, offering more capacity to grow and a simpler, more cost-efficient process so that sellers can offer more flexible delivery options.”

Lambell added: “At eBay, we’ve been making big investments in the UK to help our sellers grow, recently offering a financing scheme to give businesses much-needed access to finance. Launching eBay fulfilment by Orange Connex is how we’re going even further to help sellers adapt in a changing retail landscape, reducing burdensome costs and giving them more opportunity to focus on their business and what they do best.”

The new UK service follows the launch of end-to-end fulfilment services in Germany and China, which the digital marketplace said had been “incredibly successful,” with thousands of eBay sellers already using these services.
“Orange Connex are delighted to be working with eBay on the launch of the new UK fulfilment service, harnessing the value of our combined experience to help many of their small business customers scale and succeed,” said Gerry Power, country head, Orange Connex Global UK. “As online demand has surged this year, we’re excited to be helping these businesses keep up with higher volumes of orders.”

Power added: “This end-to-end fulfilment process will offer sellers improved visibility and control throughout the supply chain, while the end shopper can enjoy a more enhanced delivery.”

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