Why should a cellular carrier make customers buy plan through EBay?

**joseg2016** · 01-13-2021, 01:18 PM

What is the sense for any cellular service company making its customer buy their plan for service through EBay? Red Pocket appears to be the only carrier which does this. Want any multimonth plan? Buy the plan through EBay; not from Red Pocket directly. Why? What is the logic, and who for?

**Serial Port** · 01-13-2021, 01:28 PM

Saves them money not having to pay a sales team, I would have to assume.

**joseg2016** · 01-13-2021, 01:33 PM

Originally Posted by Serial Port

Saves them money not having to pay a sales team, I would have to assume.

How any sales team? Usually, customer of smaller or virtual carrier makes payment for a cell plan or enrolls in a new plan by doing it online through some online system. Not sure this requires any sales team.

**Serial Port** · 01-13-2021, 01:36 PM

Originally Posted by joseg2016

What is the sense for any cellular service company making its customer buy their plan for service through EBay?

I answered this question. You asked and I answered.

**hyelton** · 01-13-2021, 01:38 PM

Originally Posted by joseg2016

How any sales team? Usually, customer of smaller or virtual carrier makes payment for a cell plan or enrolls in a new plan by doing it online through some online system. Not sure this requires any sales team.

eBay is basically free advertising.... also there not the only carrier. There are several doing it

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**joseg2016** · 01-13-2021, 03:11 PM

Originally Posted by hyelton

eBay is basically free advertising.... also there not the only carrier. There are several doing it

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I just have not seen that, except for Red Pocket. Nearly every MVNO site I have checked at show a way to buy various cell plans or they show their different cell plans, and only is Red Pocket the one which pushes the customer or buyer on to make a buy through eBay. Most of the others show you buy from them ; not through Red Pocket or whatever else.

**zapjb** · 01-13-2021, 03:19 PM

Millions more eyes on Red Pockets offerings. End of story.

**Boz1** · 01-13-2021, 03:25 PM

Originally Posted by joseg2016

I just have not seen that, except for Red Pocket. Nearly every MVNO site I have checked at show a way to buy various cell plans or they show their different cell plans, and only is Red Pocket the one which pushes the customer or buyer on to make a buy through eBay. Most of the others show you buy from them ; not through Red Pocket or whatever else.

I think it's actually that Red Pocket is the only one, to my knowledge, fully transparent about it. The other MVNOs that do it don't say they are doing it on their official website, and some even have 3rd parties selling their plans.

**ShredFred** · 01-13-2021, 04:43 PM

You don't have to buy your plan on eBay. You can buy straight on the website. They just offer discounts if you buy through eBay.

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**kevink1** · 01-13-2021, 04:56 PM

Originally Posted by ShredFred

You don't have to buy your plan on eBay. You can buy straight on the website. They just offer discounts if you buy through eBay.

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What about their exclusive on eBay annual plans?

Maybe they can negotiate a better deal on eBay? Some customers might get deals on eBay.

**robbyrobby** · 01-13-2021, 06:29 PM

one reason may be to limit the audience, they may not want to offer the plan so easily on the activation portal encouraging users who may click on a higher priced plan for convenience. eBay on the other hand they are competing against many other providers and they want a piece of the action from those specifically searching for multi-month discounted plans.

may not be the actually reason, but its a possible reason why

**Colecaz** · 01-13-2021, 06:41 PM

EBay has the massive infrastructure to order, track, and bill purchases. Plus they deal with the credit card details, etc. It makes great sense for RP to use them and avoid having to implement all that themselves. And I would imagine EBay has fulfillment services for shipping the orders.

**ShredFred** · 01-13-2021, 06:48 PM

Ebay is just a retail market place. It's very popular. It's good that they offer discounts for going this route.

Maybe the red pocket website isn't geared to handling alot of traffic for sales.

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**robbyrobby** · 01-13-2021, 06:54 PM

Originally Posted by Colecaz

EBay has the massive infrastructure to order, track, and bill purchases. Plus they deal with the credit card details, etc. It makes great sense for RP to use them and avoid having to implement all that themselves. And I would imagine EBay has fulfillment services for shipping the orders.

i think the point is that you can buy most plans direct from redpocket, it is only the heavily discounted annual plans that are eBay exclusives.

seems they intentional want to make it slightly less convenient for many shoppers on their website while perhaps still grabbing as large a share as possible of those searching options on eBay.

**zapjb** · 01-13-2021, 07:27 PM

Originally Posted by robbyrobby

one reason may be to limit the audience, they may not want to offer the plan so easily on the activation portal encouraging users who may click on a higher priced plan for convenience. eBay on the other hand they are competing against many other providers and they want a piece of the action from those specifically searching for multi-month discounted plans.

may not be the actually reason, but its a possible reason why

Absolutely not. It's the views on eBay that'll be 100x greater than Red Pockets primitive website. Red Pocket sales on eBay will be a substantial % of their total sales if not multiple times higher than on the RP site. It's MONEY that's why they're on eBay. Anything else is a ridiculous reason.