eBay Now Expands Home Delivery Service to Desktop

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By Emily Price2013-07-23 00:33:33 UTC

Getting that last-minute gift from Best Buy, missing tool from Home Depot or medicine for that cold you picked up at work, just got a little easier.

eBay Now, a service that lets you order products from local retailers and delivers them in around an hour, officially launched for the web Monday. Already available in San Francisco, San Jose and New York City, the service also expanded into the Bay Area Peninsula, Brooklyn and Queens.

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“As we’ve seen mobile really take off at the consumer level it is really blurring the lines between offline and online commerce,” Dane Glasgow, eBay’s vice-president of mobile and local told Mashable. “The fact that you always have a connected device with you is having a huge influence on how people shop and buy, both at home and when they’re out on the street.”

With eBay Now, customers can shop for select items from AutoZone, Babies "R" Us, Best Buy, Finish Line, GNC, Guitar Center, Home Depot, Macy’s, Office Depot, Radio Shack, Target, Toys "R" Us, Urban Outfitters and Walgreens.

Shopping is done much like how it would at any online retailer, collecting items into a virtual cart for checkout. When you check out using eBay Now, however, a valet is dispatched to the store from which you’ve requested items, to do your shopping for you. After the valet purchases everything you’ve asked for, he or she brings the items to you specified location, typically within an hour.

Glasgow said the product's mobile version has been used for everything from ordering iPads to cold medicine. One bike rider even ordered the materials he needed to repair a damaged tire using the service, and had the items delivered.

The only requirement to get something delivered is that you spend $25 at a single retailer. Your first order through the service is free, after which each order has a $5 delivery fee.

Have you tried eBay Now? Tell us what you think about the service in the comments.

Image; Flickr, Springwools

Topics: Apps and Software, ebay, ebay now, Tech