eBay Set To Launch ‘Shoppable Windows’

eBay is no longer solely an online auction platform. It’s grown and expanded into a e-retail site that almost everyone has used at least once in his or her lifetime. Now, eBay is trying its hand at expanding online shops and bringing them to the streets.

eBay will be testing out touchscreen "shoppable windows" later in June to the front of abandoned stores in New York. The screens, which will be nine feet wide and two feet tall, will be affixed to the windows of stores, which are currently empty, in the busier neighborhoods of New York, such as the lower east side and Soho.

According to Reuters, the first four screens will be fitted and available to use from June 8 until July 7. The first screens will sell 30 items from the new fashion brand Kate Spade Saturday, owned by Fifth and Pacific.

Customers will be able to use the touchscreens to browse for Kate Spade Saturday products and get them delivered to the purchaser within an hour by courier (no products can be bought and taken away from the store). Talk about convenience, but don’t expect it to be free. Although pricing has yet to be announced, it is expected that the high-speed delivery will come at premium costs.

This isn’t the first attempt at creating a "shoppable window" experience. In October 2011, eBay set up a window display in New York, but shoppers could not order any of the products they found at that time.

If this trial goes well, the company is planning to bring eBay’s "shoppable windows" to its existing stores, such as Juicy Couture.

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