Welcome to our new column: Dropshipping News Weekly Update Vol.05

This week we prepared five dropshipping news for you to catch up with.

eBay will sell 80% of its South Korean business to Emart for $3 billion

eBay announced yesterday that it would sell 80.01% of its South Korean business, which includes G-Market, IAC, and G-9, to Emart, a unit of South Korean retail giant New World Group, for 3.44 trillion won (about $3 billion), while retaining 19.99% of the stake. According to the announcement, the implied value of eBay's entire South Korean business is $3.8bn. And the deal, which is expected to be accomplished by the end of this year or early next year, is subject to regulatory approval. In addition, eBay will retain its approximately 4% stake in Bank Kakao.

The UK has launched a formal investigation into fake reviews on Amazon and Google

Britain's antitrust regulator announced on Friday that it had opened a formal investigation into Amazon and Google for concerns that the tech giants were not doing enough to crack down on fake reviews on their sites. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it would now collect more information to determine whether the companies had broken consumer law by not taking enough action to protect consumers from fake reviews. The move follows a preliminary investigation by the CMA in May 2020 and an assessment of several platforms' internal systems and processes for identifying and dealing with fake reviews.

Shopify has launched a new payment platform that allows payment providers to create payment gateway applications

On June 30, Shopify launched its new Payments Platform, which grants payment providers the right to build payment gateways as Shopify apps that integrate into Shopify Checkout, allowing merchants to add more payment options. Last year alone, Shopify's partner payment providers handled more than $65 billion in transactions from its merchants. In total, more than 450 million people spent money on Shopify in 2020, and Shopify handled nearly $120 billion in merchandise transactions.

eBay announces the official launch of eBay Fulfillment UK

eBay announces the official launch of eBay Fulfillment by Orange Connex in the UK market on June 27th. eBay Fulfillment cooperates with Orange Union, a logistics service provider, to provide end-to-end, "one-stop" warehousing and logistics solutions to sellers to help them fully explore the global market. It is reported that eBay Fulfillment Center has been set up in Leicester and Birmingham in the UK, and its multi-fulfillment service will be gradually launched, serving not only local sellers but also those in China.

Shopify's checkout service, Shop Pay, will cover Facebook and Google merchants

Shopify recently announced that it would offer its "Shop Pay" one-click checkout service to all US merchants who sell on Facebook, Google, and Instagram, regardless of whether the merchants sell their products on Shopify.

After the expansion, non-Shopify merchants will also have the option to use Shop Pay on their own Facebook or Google stores. Shopify said the Shop Pay service would be the first product it offers to non-Shopify merchants.