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eBay rolls out new shopping interface
While pretty much every new website you see these days use newfangled tools like AJAX and Flash animation to provide a desktop-like experience without the need to reload a webpage, a handful of popular sites have continued to get by with a web 1.0 interface. Craigslist and eBay are probably the first two that come to mind. After all, if you're shopping for used goods and bargains, a flashy website might just make you feel like the seller is trying to hide something.
That said, there's one thing that has always made items more attractive on eBay and Craigslist: pictures. And the new eBay design does a good job of highlighting pictures. You can still use the traditional list view with a tiny thumbnail. But for selected categories, you can also choose a "Picture Gallery" or "Snapshot View."
In Picture Gallery, you see large thumbnails with item information like title, price, and time remaining underneath. The Snapshot View shows you just a screen filled with images. Click on one and a window will pop up with a larger photo and more info about the item. For items where looks matter more than specs, shopping by photo could definitely be more productive than shopping by title.
The new views aren't available for all users for every category yet, but the company plans to roll them out for everyone by the end of the year. Some categories will also allow you to search by size, brand or color.
Comments
4
Subscribe to commentsCaseySep 18th 2007 5:57PM
I hate the new ebay site so badly. The search is all different and to me seems very user unfriendly. There is nothing wrong with the current interface, and it works perfectly.
RazorDSep 18th 2007 6:41PM
Ebay seem to be doing something neat in the UK too:
Live adverts.
Basically, instead of a traditional recorded advert which goes into the advert libraries, they air which must be computer generated adverts which show real ebay auctions and their current price, and the end time..
I'm not sure if you have these in america, but this is definately a UK first :)
James E. LaBarreSep 22nd 2007 2:38PM
As if eBay wasn'r running slow enough as it was, they decide to **ONCE AGAIN** redesign their interface. And EVERY TIME they touch their interface, it works worse than before.
JockNov 11th 2007 9:17AM
Its a load of rubbish. When you want to bid on something, you go to the box, enter the amount, then hit place your bid. You now go to another screen where, guess what, you have to enter the amount again, before finally getting to the confirm bid screen. And the searches are junk as well. If you try and search for a seller's completed items to find out how much items are going for, you have to put in a 6 digit security code, then you get a list of auctions but no completed ones are displayed. This is typical, pathetic software, the programmers haven't done enough (any ?) testing. Remind you of any other companies ?.