eBay unofficially rolled out its new eBay Express marketplace in preview mode on Friday afternoon. eBay is banking on the new site to attract buyers who don't currently shop on its auction marketplace by offering new items in a more traditional ecommerce shopping experience. eBay members who found the live site began kicking the tires right away.

Richard Chemel operates an iSold It drop-off store in Chatsworth, California under the User ID isoldit.ca007. He bought two DVDs on eBay Express on Friday evening. He selected DVDs from two different sellers, and paid with one transaction using the site's shopping cart. Chemel said eBay Express was "simple and easy to use."

Another buyer who purchased multiple items from eBay Express loved the site, but said she was disappointed that she couldn't have items shipped to multiple addresses, which would be a real advantage around the holiday shopping season.

Franci Neale is a PowerSeller (User ID: JustonceOnline) and runs a Store on eBay. She conducted several searches on eBay Express on Saturday to put the new site through its paces. She was pleased to see the shipping prices displayed on the search results pages. "Each item shows the shipping, which is a real advantage for the shopper and shows just how outrageous some of the shipping is. Anyone who can work it out for "free" shipping will win that game immediately." However, Neale said she was not happy with the results of a search for packing tape, since she could get better prices at Staples, Office Max or Big Lots.

eBay Express Registration
You can use your existing eBay User ID to register for eBay Express. When I tried to register as a new user, it told me I already had an eBay account, and asked me to login with my eBay User ID. For people who may not have logged onto eBay in years, there are "Forget User ID?" and "Forget password?" links.

Major Differences between eBay Express and eBay.com
eBay touts eBay Express as a safer, easier-to-shop marketplace. eBay Express is a subset of eBay.com - every item you find on eBay Express is also listed and available for purchase on eBay.com. There are major differences in the shopping experience, however.

• No auctions. Only items that can be purchased right away are included on eBay Express. eBay.com fixed-price and Store listings must include a photo, the item condition, and shipping costs in order to show up on eBay Express.
• Fewer categories. eBay Express only pulls from categories that have an "item condition" field. For example, you won't find items from eBay.com's Pottery & Glass category on eBay Express. However, you can find a McCoy vase on eBay Express from the seller who listed it in the Home Decor category.
• Safety. eBay Express will only include items from U.S. sellers who have a minimum of 100 feedback ratings, 98 percent positive, and sellers must have a Premier or Business PayPal account. Seller requirements are spelled out on the site.
  http://pages.ebay.com/express/service/about/selling.html
• Purchase protection. eBay promises better buyer protection on eBay Express than on eBay.com. Buyers must have a PayPal account in order to file a complaint. On the description page, eBay explains, "If your dispute is granted, PayPal will reimburse you for losses up to the full amount of your eBay Express purchase." Buyers have 45 days to make a claim, and can file one dispute per transaction. It's difficult to know whether shoppers will be satisfied with the eBay Express protection plan.

http://pages.ebay.com/express/service/account/purchase_protection.html

http://pages.ebay.com/express/service/account/purchase_protection_details.html

• Shopping cart. You can place items from different sellers in your shopping cart and purchase with one transaction. Like other ecommerce sites, eBay Express uses cookies so it remembers the items you have placed in your shopping cart, even if you leave and return the next day. Note that another customer can purchase an item on eBay.com, and if you had placed that item in your shopping cart but had not yet purchased it, it will disappear from your shopping cart. I imagine items would also disappear from the cart if the listing expires on eBay.com. (eBay Store owners might be tempted to use the "Good Til Cancelled" feature for store listings to prevent that from occurring.)
• User interface. While titles are of critical importance on eBay.com to help shoppers locate items, they are less important on eBay Express, which uses product attributes ("Item Specifics") to power its shopping navigation system. Shoppers on eBay Express are more likely to spend time clicking on links to drill down into categories and browse by product attribute than typing keywords into the search engine.
• Feedback information. The Feedback information on eBay Express is currently limited to the most recent 25 ratings, but it contains the actual item next to the feedback rating. (eBay would do well to add this information to eBay.com feedback pages to give buyers more information about what the seller has sold in the past. ) At the bottom of the 25 feedback ratings on eBay Express, there is a link to ""View all feedback on eBay," so buyers can do more research on the seller if they choose.

eBay Express feels like a fixed-price ecommerce site when you are shopping, though you won't currently find the breadth of inventory in every category that you might hope for on such a marketplace. No doubt eBay is hoping sellers will fill in these gaps as they grow more comfortable with the new site.

Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor, had said in an AuctionBytes.TV interview that some of his clients - high-volume PowerSellers - were holding back on making all of their eBay.com listings available to eBay Express (http://auctionbytes.tv/features). Rather, they were creating second accounts to use on eBay Express while they got early experience with the site. Their biggest concern, according to Wingo, was the requirement that they must send items to unconfirmed addresses, eliminating some of the seller protection eBay.com offers.

eBay Express inventory will likely fill out if sellers feel comfortable with taking the risk of sending items to unconfirmed addresses, and as sellers learn how to make their eBay.com listings appear on eBay Express. In fact, sellers will likely be looking for gaps to fill on eBay Express if they feel there is enough buyer demand on the site.

There is a bit of "cognitive dissonance" on eBay Express. While navigation feels like a fixed-price ecommerce marketplace, such as Amazon.com, the actual item descriptions remind you that you are on an eBay site. There is no consistent formatting or Terms of Sale. And since eBay Express pulls from eBay.com listings, you will see messages that might be somewhat confusing, including notes that the seller accepts money orders and other payments that are not accepted on eBay Express. (Shoppers on eBay Express must use either a credit card or PayPal.)

In addition, many of the item descriptions contain links that lead shoppers off of eBay Express and onto eBay.com and eBay Stores, such as "View my auction listings" and "Visit my eBay Store."

eBay Express versus Amazon.com
As mentioned above, the item description page lacks the consistency on eBay Express that you would find on a site like Amazon.com. As for pricing, I did a random search for identical items on eBay Express and on Amazon.com. There was no clear winner in terms of pricing.

eBay is hoping to make its pie bigger: rather than move eBay.com shoppers to eBay Express, it is hoping it will attract new buyers who want to purchase new items right away in a fraud-free environment. But on eBay Express, shoppers are still buying from individual sellers, not eBay itself. With Amazon's reputation for excellent customer service and ironclad consumer protection, it's uncertain whether shoppers will want to take a risk on eBay Express unless prices are significantly cheaper and the customer service experience is an improvement over that on eBay.com. One advantage eBay Express has for shoppers with money in their PayPal accounts is that it accepts PayPal payments, while Amazon.com does not.

What's most fascinating about the eBay Express marketplace is that eBay has little control over the inventory offered aside from setting ground rules, such as which categories it includes. It will be up to sellers to "stock the shelves."

eBay employees answered questions about eBay Express Preview on Saturday on the Seller Central discussion board (http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000267737). eBay is set to officially launch eBay Express this week, and eBay and its sellers have until the next holiday shopping season to test the site and work out the kinks.

http://express.ebay.com