Economics

EBay's Adventures in Brick and Mortar

The site uses holiday pop-up stores to push smartphone transactions

Provide news feedback or report an error

Confidential tip?

Send a tip to our reporters

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

By Danielle Kucera

November 23, 2011 at 10:47 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

BusinessWeek Cover Image (11_49, 900x1033)

This article is part of the November 28, 2011 issue of businessweek.

Amazon.com, Gilt Groupe, and other online retailers are blitzing consumers with early promotions this holiday season in the hope that shoppers will stay glued to their personal computers or smartphones and out of department stores and boutiques. EBay is taking a different tack: It will open a pop-up store in London to catch consumers while they’re out on the streets—and get them to shop online.

The shop on Dean Street in London’s West End will be opened from Dec. 1 to Dec. 5. Products will be displayed with so-called QR (as in quick response) codes, souped up versions of the familiar bar code, that can be embedded with a URL address, data, or text. When scanned by smartphones, these codes will take a customer to the payments section of the EBay site.