Half of Americans received unwanted holiday gifts last year, and more than a third of Americans kept those gifts. But a good number of other folks seemed to have listed the unwanted stuff on eBay, which says it saw a spike in new sellers and new listings last year in the days after Christmas.
This year, eBay is making it easier for people to surreptitiously dispose of the unwanted stuff and profit from it.
The e-commerce company for the first time is setting up physical pop-up booths and drop-off boxes at nine Westfield Mall properties in the US this weekend (Dec. 26 and Dec. 27), during which people can take their unwanted gifts to be posted for sale online. It’s part of a broader effort to introduce people to the eBay Valet service, which allows customers to print free shipping labels and mail items to eBay Valet partners, who will price, list, and sell items on behalf of customers.
The eBay pop-up selling stations will be at Westfield properties in San Francisco, Vernon Hills, Illinois, and Paramus, New Jersey. Drop boxes will be available in Paramus, Seattle, Los Angeles, Santa Clara, California, Bethesda, Maryland, and Tampa, Florida.
The eBay service will be notably absent in the state where, according to TNS Global, people are most willing to be forthright about their disappointment in their gifts: Texas.
Overall, about 15% of men and 7% of women said they are likely to tell someone about an unwanted gift.
