Enhanced eBay ProStores targets a growing segment of online sellers

EBay’s ProStores, the company’s stand-alone storefront solution that includes optional integration with the eBay platform, has released its first software upgrade after going live in June. ProStores, which launched initially based on technology from Kurant Corp.’s StoreSense, which eBay acquired in January, incorporates enhanced functionality for merchants in the new release, Version.6.0

The launch of ProStores follows the evolution of a segment of small to medium-sized eBay sellers, according to Chris Tsakalakis, senior director of store and platforms for eBay. EBay charges a listing fee for products listed on its platform, a transaction fee on completed sales, and fees for some special listing features such as the gallery option which displays product with the listings.

“Adjusted fees on an annual basis is an ongoing phenomenon,” says Tsakalakis. Given the reach of eBay’s marketplace and depending on their sales volume, “For some sellers in our customer base, those economics work,” he says. But interest has grown among some sellers in finding additional selling platforms where their cost of selling is less, such as a dedicated online storefront. “A segment of sellers on eBay has always been multi-channel at its core; that is how many of them came to eBay in the first place,” says Tsakalakis. “As these sellers look to experiment with off-eBay e-commerce strategies, we want to be there to help them.”

Tsakalakis says ProStores complements selling on eBay for small to medium-sized businesses, which eBay defines as those with annual sales in the $200,000 to $5 million range, either entering the online channel for the first time or looking to grow existing online business to the next level.

The upgraded ProStores software release includes enhanced, optional integration with eBay, search engine optimization tools, improved inventory management capabilities and expanded shopping cart options. Specifically, it allows merchants to import numerous photos of their eBay listings of products and to upload product fields they create with eBay’s free turbo lister software. The new version also allows merchants the option of letting the software automatically optimize elements of their online store for search engines so as to improve search engine rankings.

With the new release, inventory management is available to all four tiers of ProStores merchants, including the two lower tiers, Express and Business. At the Express level, merchants can set whether they have one or many items for sale in a listing, up to 10 items; while at the higher two tiers, merchants can enable back-orders and list quantities by a variety of attributes such as size or color. The new release allows shoppers to purchase at ProStores merchants without registering, if merchants choose to offer that option. Improved navigation lets shoppers enter a ZIP code to calculate shipping charges prior to checkout.

The continued development of ProStores reflects eBay’s assessment of the market opportunity represented by small business online. By the end of this year, eBay forecasts, more than 500,000 small businesses will be selling products online, representing average gross merchandise sales of more than $100,000. By 2008, eBay predicts the number of merchants in the category will reach 900,000. ProStores launched with about 9,000 small and medium-sized business users representing the existing base of merchants who had acquired Kurant’s StoreSense through the reseller network. Since then, Tsakalakis says, thousands of additional merchants have come onto the ProStores platform.