eBay Taps Top Designers For an Exclusive Holiday Collection

10:30 AM, July 17 2012

By Alison Syrett

It's only mid-July, but eBay is already planning for the Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa season. The online marketplace just announced that it has partnered with designers Billy Reid, Chris Benz, Fallon, Jonathan Adler, Ruffian, Steven Alan and Tibi to form the "eBay Holiday Collective," which will debut a selection of limited-edition gifts on November 12. Each of the seven participants will create at least five items for the collection, priced from $50 to $100, with free shipping on everything.

Included in the range, which will be sold on the site's "Fashion Vault" section, is a diverse array of present options, including apparel, home goods, jewelry and travel and electronic accessories—making this eBay's biggest collaboration to date. Although the company has worked with fashion labels such as Derek Lam and Rebecca Minkoff on one-off lines in the past, it has never teamed up with this many brands at once.

“The eBay Holiday Collective marks another milestone for eBay in the fashion category,” Jeff Somers, the general manager of eBay Fashion, told WWD. "As consumers seek seamless, multichannel, anytime-anywhere shopping, creative collaborations point to the future of commerce. Our focus is on enabling commerce, and we’re achieving that by serving as a partner to retailers of all sizes."

Given the announcement of Target and Neiman Marcus' groundbreaking team-up last week, it's impossible not to draw comparisons or wonder what other retailers are planning. What originally started a few years ago as a novel idea—small, capsule collections from high-end labels for fast fashion chains, what?!—has turned into the norm. Now that department stores and e-tailers have joined the game, who do you hope will make the next big move? Perhaps Shopbop would be good (they do already have connections with a multitude of designers, after all) or Walmart—we'd love to see the superstore get some style street cred. Let us know what you think in the comments below!

Photo: Chris Benz, one of the participating designers, via WWD

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