Pop-Up Mysteries: What Is eBay Doing On West 57th Street?

Midtown shoppers may be bewildered to see big signs for eBay installed at 3 West 57^th Street, the space next to Bergdorf's that most recently housed Fortunoff, and a host of temporary and pop-up stores before that.
Isn't eBay the antithesis of a brick and mortar store? Doesn't this fly in the face of eBay's claim that it is not actually a retailer itself?
WWD tells us that eBay is running a five-day "holiday preview" pop-up store so people can "see what just a fraction of its inventory would look like in a store".
Apparently, eBay will be cherry picking the best of what its vendors are offering on its site to fill the 5,000 square foot store and is promising 'wow' items from many of the luxury brands whose own boutiques are only a stone's throw away like Vuitton, Gucci and even Apple. How this will play out, we don't exactly know. Will they be auctioning items in the store, or will we have to bid using our own computers or iPhones or Blackberrys? Of course, eBay itself does not own merchandise or inventory, so we'll be interested to see how they collect the items on display.
And which holiday exactly are they previewing? Labor Day? Halloween? We haven't even been able to ascertain exact dates for the event. As of yesterday afternoon, the store was in set-up mode, so we're keeping our eye on this one.
EBay, Daffy's to Open Pop-Ups (WWD)

Comments

[Jessica Guerro]

Hmm, interesting news. Its a great way to get some publicity. Definitely an interesting marketing concept. Thanks for the news.

[Nathan]

so will the luxury brand items be genuine, or will they be well-designed fakes, like a great deal of the "luxury" items currently sold on eBay?

[Mitch Jureckson]

Like AOL, Microsoft and other familiar names, which have grown out of our love affair with the computer, Ebay has become a powerful brand. Whether you sell from brick and mortar (like Blockbuster), through vending machines (like RedBox), through the mail and on-line (like Netflix) the point is consumers have more variety of choice than ever before. If Ebay's pop-up store gets people out from behind their video screens and shopping on 57th St. more power to them! (By the way Blockbuster is testing vending machines at the moment so retail can move [must move?] in other directions once the brand is established).