eBay announced plans earlier this week that it will start rolling out its eBay Now same-day delivery service in London,England. The pilot program is scheduled to begin in 2014 in partnership with Argos, a UK-based retailer. This announcement is eBay Now’s first step into the international market after the program was released last year in New York and San Francisco. The Argos partnership will mean that the retailer will adopt eBay’s “Click and Collect” program on a trial basis and we can this spread to over 150 locations in the UK. This means that in those 150+ locations, like in the US, people will be able to eBay items and pick them up at local Argos outlets. For now, eBay says that this program will start off with 50 merchants in the UK and will expand as needed.
Although this might seem new, this new delivery program has been seen before, most notably by Amazon with its’ own same-day delivery and locker pick-up service which is available in both the US and UK. Google has also started to experiment with this idea, but only in San Francisco for the time being. all three companies have even made their own apps so you can buy on-the-go and eBay has also released the eBay Now app for android and iOS and are available for download and use.