eBay's New View Item Page

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AuctionBytes Blog
News and insight focusing on
ecommerce and the online auction industry
by Ina Steiner, Editor of AuctionBytes.com

March 09, 2009

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

By: Ina Steiner

Mon Mar 9 2009 09:56:34

Today's AuctionBytes Newsflash newsletter features an article about eBay's new View Item page, which eBay had said would fully roll out by the middle of this year. I had been trying to spot the new page for some time - eBay has been selectively exposing users to the new design. Someone in a previous blog post suggested trying a different browser in order to be exposed to the new View Item page. Sure enough, it worked when I switched to Internet Explorer. You can see screenshots and more information in the accompanying article.

Two big areas of concern for sellers are the full shipping & payment details being a click away under a new tab on the page, and competitors' listings appearing on the related items tab.

In the related items section, sometimes eight, sometimes 12 thumbnails, appear. It's difficult to determine exactly how eBay is selecting listings to display in the Related items tab - it may very well be its Best Match algorithm.

I did a few searches and the related items seemed to match, except when I did a search for "Agatha Christie mystery." I clicked on a listing and then clicked on the Related items tab, and it came up with 12 "related items and services" - except that 8 of them Agatha Christie books, and 4 of them were unrelated, including one "NHL lot of 8 GOALIE GAME USED JERSEY CARDS"

Sellers should preview the new View Item page so they can see how it impacts their listings. The countdown clock in the last 24 hours of a listing may be quite popular with bidders. And it's possible it may give them a sense of urgency about placing their bids!

I'm not sure if there is any way to optimize listings any differently for the new layout and features. (Keep in mind that eBay's new search experience that is rolling out sitewide in April searches not just the titles of listings, it also checks categories, item specifics, and common spelling errors, abbreviations, and similar words.)

The other reason the new View Item page is important is because it's another opportunity to try and get exposure on eBay. I suspect that DSR scores, PowerSeller status and use of Item Specifics may play an important role in getting exposure on the View Item pages of other sellers. However, since eBay is still testing the new page, it's impossible to draw any definitive conclusions.

Comments (30) | Permalink

Readers Comments

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: katydidscards

Mon Mar 9 10:19:48 2009

I did some checking around various items, and interestingly, found that I could view my own auctions using the new page view, but not other sellers who were selling the same sort of thing (same type of item, different specific one.)

Wonder why that would be?

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: l cole

Mon Mar 9 10:28:51 2009

If I'm signed in I can't see other sellers on my ad page. If I sign out and go back to my ad page I see my competitors listings on my ad page.
Seems sneaky.
They don't want an avalance of angry sellers.
The worst change is email reminders that a watched item is ending and it's time to bid, but other similar products are displayed in the email which possibly pulls bidders away from the watched item to a competitors item. Dirty pool.
This can create indecision and no bids at all.

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: pike

Mon Mar 9 11:05:50 2009

''BusinessWeek expects the company to use the opportunity to tell analysts that they should focus on PayPal metrics rather than eBay.''

Remember when you were a kid, and said
''Hey, Look over there!''
so you could steal candy from a friend?

Same ploy, but performed by eBay MBA's, not kids.

Same result, Not Fooled!

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: where have you been?

Mon Mar 9 11:10:44 2009

From September 10, 2008:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/typepad/ebay-developer/dev
/~3/389164313/

"Want to see how your listing will look in the new View Item page? Head on over to http://sandbox.ebay.com!"

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: as for the new page

Mon Mar 9 11:14:37 2009

Realize that links within the description body *each* open in their own new window, which can lead to extreme tiling of windows. Setting targets is useless; they don't work, and has been confirmed by developers that this is by design.

Realize that "tabbing" is implemented on the page bottom, and cannot be linked to from within the description body. Again, confirmed by developers.

Don't think that this is a problem for you? Do you link to your store frequently within a listing? See what happens. Do you link to your shipping rates frequently within a listing? See what happens.

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: lastly ....

Mon Mar 9 11:15:46 2009

this "test" has been ongoing since January 2008. Yes, folks, now on month fourteen.

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: Ina

Mon Mar 9 12:18:48 2009

The accompanying Newsflash article states, "eBay has been testing a new Item page (also known as View Item page) for over a year." We first wrote about the testing 13 months ago in this February 2008 article:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y08/m02/i19/s01
>eBay has made major changes to the page since then.

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: Kal

Mon Mar 9 13:55:38 2009

I don't know, I don't find the new page that bad. It does have a cleaner look to it. I also had to run IE7 in order for the new page to show up, it does not appear using Firefox (my default browser).

I looked at my own items only.

On one item which ends tonight, I got the count down clock, but it was NOT real-time. It was static. When you refreshed the page you got a new time. Is this an IE setting perhaps? I have all the normal things enabled.

I have ''mixed'' feelings about the shipping tab. OK, full details aren't shown, but the shipping amount is still shown near the top of the page, and there IS a link right next to the price that says ''Full Details''. Frankly, I don't think this is going to make any difference. Those people that don't read anyway wouldn't have seen your shipping terms on the old page anyway, so I think it's a draw.

As for the ''related Items'' tab, nothing showed up when I clicked it. I don't normally sell items where I have dozens of competitors, and this is why best match never really had me upset. However, one item I am selling, there are a few of them listed by other sellers. That came up blank too. Someone suggested logging off. I could find no link to ''sign off'', only to ''sign in''. Odd though as the page did not say ''Welcome [UserID]. Not you? Sign in.'' as it does when you are logged in, but it did say at the top of the page ''Your item has received xx bids and has been bid up to $xx.xx'', along with a link to revise the page. It's like I was signed off, but it still knew it was me. It's almost as if I'm ''half logged in''. Very weird.

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: TekGems

Mon Mar 9 14:14:33 2009

I don't like the separation of Description and Shipping. I think the content should be on one page like it is now.

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: jeff

Mon Mar 9 18:29:42 2009

It's Very manipulative on ebay's part. It eliminates steering views to your own ebay store and allows for more ads from other sellers to be placed on your page. A page that YOU paid for.

1 more unnecessary changes to ebay page display. More IT web designers trying to rationalize their employment. These people have nothing to do so 'Hey lets redesign a page, let make sure they're problems so it takes several more YEARS to fix the problem' These people need to be FIRED.
2 Seller Circle Floating graphic is pushed to the bottom of the page. Again, it pushes views away from your own listings.
3 Sellers ebay store Links in Store displays are eliminated, *left side store menu bar*. Why pay for a store if you can't even promote it on your own page? that has been the marketing strategy for many sellers on ebay. List lost leaders in auction listing and then heavily promote your store items to viewer. Offer combined shipping discounts, adds or accessory's, more production education. Now this can't be a viable strategy anymore.

All this at the Seller's expense.

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: joe

Mon Mar 9 20:52:30 2009

3/9/09 8:45EST,
ebay new view page is just about done, when and if they do, listings will be free. The test is open now as eBay is giving free list to everyone for march 10 thru the 13th...hold on to your seats because when it's free they can and will put anything on the page they want...another reason to diversify your selling...good luck.

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: hey joe

Mon Mar 9 22:51:59 2009

whaddya talking about?

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: Henry N

Tue Mar 10 00:07:36 2009

eBay idiocy strikes again. I have viewed this new page and I do not like it. It has always been my opinion that when I pay a listing fee I am buying space on eBay to advertise and promote my item. Why would any seller want to promote another sellers items and cause them to go to a competitors Ad. This is Bad, Bad, Bad. If there is a seller who likes this I would be interested in knowing why. Once again eBay has shown they do not care what the sellers think. Having said all that I will find a way to work around it. In fact I have already taken the first step by adding links to my store for similar items or items in the same category.

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: @ Henry N

Tue Mar 10 00:25:10 2009

CAUTION: Your store URL is going to change on March 31st!!! The URL to your store -- the one you've been using for years -- will bring up "PAGE NOT FOUND"!

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: Paul

Tue Mar 10 00:50:54 2009

What is it with eBay and TABS? Instead of having everything you need on one page, they make you run around like rats in a maze to find everything.

Time is short to prod your customers to your alternate sites, and I don't mean Bonanzle which has many sellers and NO buyers. eCrater and ebid have some possibilities...

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: wondering

Tue Mar 10 00:55:32 2009

I'm wondering if it's legal(I know it's not ethical) for ebay to forbid us to place links in our listings that takes a looker off ebay......yet, ebay puts ''sponsers'' on our listings that do exactly that!!! I know they pay a fee to advertize, but then SO DO I.

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: Ming the Merciless

Tue Mar 10 01:10:14 2009

Once again, ebay isn't in the business of "helping" sellers.

Ebay is business to make money, and if they believe they can make more money by putting a competitor's listings in your rented (see ebay's UA) ad space, then they will put as many as they think prudent in YOUR space without a second thought to the damage it might cause sellers.

For now, sellers are nothing more than a necessary evil to ebay, and ebay allows sellers to list items so they'll have MORE places to put revenue generating ads.

Ebay doesn't care if your item sells or not. In fact, they'd prefer you don't sell your item for weeks or months so they can strip a little more "skin" off your skeleton like the feeding piranhas they are each time you relist.

Ebays lacks the ability and leadership to develop ideas that help sellers AND concommitantly makes them money as well.

Ebay management's mentality is no different than the predatory lenders and their mortgage schemes. They're going to bleed sellers dry and then throw away the carcasses.

And in the process sellers will bring ebay down by giving them so many black eyes in so many places ebay will die. Ebay management is positively clueless about how widely distrusted and despised ebay has become in the last 2-3 years.

Ebay stock close 3-9-09:
10.27
-0.16 (-1.53%)

The end can't come too soon.

Death to ebay corp. 2009.
NEG MEG (Whitman) in 2010.

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: Jessy S.

Tue Mar 10 02:10:09 2009

I just want to say that I haven't used the new item page yet, but I can pretty much say that it sucks. We all pay to list items on ebay, except for the special diamond sellers such as Buy.com, but the effort to have somebody elses item on your item page is insulting at best. I love the views of other people such as crazy teen NY Driver's You Tube commentary, but I will not and should not allow his items to be listed on my item page, and I am sure that he would not want any of my items on his item page. It is just common sense but BD and the gang need some knocked into their heads.

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: just remember

Tue Mar 10 10:50:18 2009

Just Remember:

(a) Ebay only makes changes to financially help Ebay and not help their customers in any way.

(b) Ebay only "tests" changes to see if they work technically and work to increase their profits.

(c) Ebay does not listen to Sellers when considering or making changes.

ERGO: If there is a change, it WILL help Ebay and if it hurts some or many sellers, well that's just too bad.

eBay's New View Item Page - Hit or Miss?

by: time to leave ebay

Tue Mar 10 16:06:00 2009

Ebays new search is garbage,
I have just lost my opt out, therefore my ebay account now falls into abeyance..

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