Blair's new My eBay

Back in June at eBay Live! in Boston, Sue and I were lucky enough to meet Blair Hamilton, the eBay product manager who’s been working on the new My eBay for the past year. Blair was infectiously enthusiastic about the work going on to improve the user experience on eBay and today Blair announced on eBay Chatter My eBay is ready for beta testing.

Initially just 1% of selected users will be invited to test the new My eBay, but by early September it’ll be opened up to more users. In October additional features will be added and in the New Year the new My eBay will be rolled out site wide. The launch dates may change depending on results of beta testing.

So what’s the big deal? Well firstly buyers will get more item details, pictures, seller information and critically the ability to bid and raise bids directly from My eBay. If a buyer logs on and sees they’re not winning an auction they can instantly raise their bid directly within My eBay. Anything that makes it easier and more convenient for buyers to bid is great news for sellers!

The ability to make notes on items will also be added, plus the ability to add reminders un-associated with any particular buying and selling activity. This will be great for buyers to add “This is a Christmas present for mum” and to personalise transactions in new ways, as a seller anything that makes eBay more personal and fun is great news. For sellers to be able to set reminders, such as “Run out of xyz product, add to order on Friday” and have it in My eBay where it can’t be missed, will be invaluable over time.

The final change will be update to navigation around My eBay, currently my left navigation bar in My eBay has 48 links, and invariably to get to the one I want I have to scroll down the page. This will be simplified, customisable by the user so that the parts of My eBay that are most important to them appear in the summary page . The summary page will also highlight items you need to take action on such as for buyers they need to pay for three items and sellers may need to ship ten items that have been paid.

New technology will allow the pages to load faster, I’m really looking forward to trying out the new slicker My eBay!