

EBay Is Launching A Same-Day Shipping Service Called eBay Now - zengr
http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/05/ebay-is-launching-a-same-day-shipping-service-called-ebay-now/

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jonknee
A local eBay could start to challenge Craigstlist. I bet they could figure out
how to map stuff too.

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_delirium
They've been trying to for years. They launched Kijiji in 2005, which caught
on in Canada but not in the U.S., and was later rebranded (except in Canada)
to "eBay Classifieds". I believe they had some kind of local-listings attempt
that preceded that as well. They've also (with more success) been specifically
targeting the used-car-sales portion of the local market with eBay Motors.

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joedrew
Kijiji not only caught on in Canada, it's dominant here. I don't even bother
listing things for sale on Craigslist any more; the buyers are simply only
checking Kijiji.

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rawreth
I found my (Waterloo) apartment sublet listing more successful in attracting
customers on Craigslist than Kijiji. Maybe different items are more successful
on one space than the other.

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myth_drannon
I believe Kijiji is popular only in French speaking Quebec

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nosecreek
Absolutely not true, I live in Alberta and my experience is the same as
joedrew. I also lived in Saskatchewan for a year and found that it was the
same: Kijiji is by far the dominant online classifieds site.

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jser
I'm still not sure how this is economically viable. At the IRS rate of
$0.55/mile and the average messenger pay of $12/hour, about four or more
deliveries per hour would be needed to break even just for the hour. Add
traffic and downtime for when the messenger has no deliveries and it doesn't
seem possible.

For comparison, in Chicago a company called Dining-in has similar constraints
-- delivering within about an hour a custom order. They charge $6.99 --
excluding the tip.

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interwho
If it only supports local stores, and has nothing to do with auctions, then
how is it any different than TaskRabbit?

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rorrr
It's eBay. 200 million registered users.

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marshallp
There is a way for doing same day, or even same hour shipping everywhere.
Combine pre-ordering with gps.

A website where people can express they want to purchase something at a
certain maximum delivery charge. As soon as enough people want to purchase
things in a certain geographic area (based on a calculation of delivery
route), they service kicks in - someone picks out all the goods (this would
most likely be a grocery store) and then drives and delivers it on that route.

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duaneb
This depends on both a large density of users and readily available
merchandise (e.g. a warehouse). Of course, in my experience, the only reason
people go to eBay is for things they can't get on Amazon - collectibles, used
clothing, items not manufactured anymore. None of these combine well with
warehouses due to their relatively unique nature.

