Auction site eBay is launching a in-store pickup service in the United Kingdom, as well as expanding its eBay Now same-day delivery scheme outside of the United States. A partnership with retailer Argos will allow eBay users to order from 50 merchants and have goods delivered to a store, which in the case of the Click & Collect pilot, consists of 150 Argos branches across the country.
The initial batch of Argos stores and merchant numbers of Click & Collect could increase if the pilot scheme goes well, with the entire project having echoes of the Amazon Locker program. Both eBay and Amazon also use a similar deliver-to-retailer scheme called Collect+, which sends orders to over 5,000 corner shops for customer pickup.
London will also benefit from an extension of eBay Now, which will allow customers to receive their goods just one hour after ordering them through the site. The original trial in San Francisco used an iOS app and charged $5 for delivery of items worth over $25
