eBay is launching a counterattack to Amazon's famous cardboard boxes (EBAY, AMZN)

eBay

Unless you live under a rock, you're probably familiar with Amazon's shipping boxes. 

The brown cardboard boxes, emblazoned with Amazon's distinctive arrow logo, carry everything from the new sneakers to electronics that customers order. Amazon's boxes have become so visible and ubiquitous that they were even used as a canvas to advertise the Minions film in June. 

Now e-commerce rival eBay wants to fight back with its own arsenal of boxes.

The company said on Tuesday that it will begin offering eBay-branded boxes, envelopes, and tape for the third-party merchants who sell goods on its site. eBay will sell the boxes and other items to the merchants through a new shipping supplies online store.

The store will sell what eBay says are 100% recyclable boxes in 10 different sizes, as well as "airjacket” bubble mailers, “polyjacket” mailers, and "premium quality tape." eBay will eventually offer additional items for sale, it said. 

Retailers use big data and online traffic analytics to get an edge. But even cardboard boxes can't be overlooked in the fiercely competitive e-commerce business.

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