EBay
has succumbed to the power of the (printing) press. The San Jose, CA-based online auction company will distribute 23 million copies of a print catalog this weekend in 55 newspapers throughout the country. Because eBay acts as an intermediaries for thousands of individuals and companies acutioning off an ever-changing selection of goods, the traffic driver will not include product prices, and it will highlight items that are sure to be offered by multiple vendors, such as personal digital assistants, Bob the Builder dolls, and Harry Potter trading cards.
Several other online marketers have already distributed holiday catalogs via newspapers this season. General merchant Amazon.com, for instant, distributed a 14-page traffic driver, and Yahoo! Shopping included an insert in the syndicated “USA Weekend” magazine the weekend prior to Thanksgiving.