First impressions of the new My eBay beta

No primary category set

The new My eBay beta is now available for users to check out and is looking great. The clunky headers from the old eBay are gone and have been replaced with a newly-,designed tabbed page complete with drop downs to access the key sections.

However when it comes to using it, it’s not nearly as feature rich as the old My eBay. While the aesthetics have obviously been given a high priority, it doesn’t appear that enough thought has been given to how people use the site.

My eBay beta positive changes

The entire My eBay look and feel has been updated; the graphic designers really have done a good job in making the page easy on the eye with newly designed icons and section headers.

The introduction of lists is a great new tool. You can create lists for gift ideas, products you want to research, a wish list of items to buy, in fact a list for pretty much anything. The only drawback is that you can only add items to a list if they already appear in My eBay. Do I really want to add things I’ve already added to my watch list or already bought? Apart from that the only items I can add are those I’m actually selling – not a great source of gift ideas, but I’d hope it’ll be expanded to enable items to be added from elsewhere on the site in the future.

Shortcuts replace the links section of My eBay, but they’ve been expanded so that you can now add your own links to this section. Do you want instant access to your blocked bidder list? How about a link to the PowerSeller board? You can even add links to sites off eBay: maybe a link to your online banking would be useful?

The ability to customise My eBay to display the information that’s important to you has always been great and the new My eBay allows you to do this. The new My eBay takes customisation even further to the extent of allowing changes the colours of the page headers.

Sidebar adverts have been removed from My eBay: no longer are they slowing down the page load and hopefully it’s not a temporary move. Adverts in My eBay have largely been irrelevant to users and leave parts of the page unusable until they have loaded.

My eBay beta neutral changes

The summary page is simply a summary of summaries. It adds nothing and doesn’t give enough information on anything to be useful. This is a page that might as well not exist bar the fact that it displays buying and selling totals and they’re no longer available anywhere else. The only thing it might do is scare buyers into curtailing their spending as it highlights how much they’ve already spent.

In lists of items the focus has been shifted to the item title with the User ID and item number displayed in a relatively small font. If a buyer contacts you regarding a purchase they’re likely to give you their User ID and the item number – this is going to make it visually harder to locate transactions in the future. You’ll need to have already customised the page to add in the item number and buyer ID, or you’ll have no way of distinguishing between identical sales.

If buyers don’t customise the display to show their sellers ID alongside their purchase, they’ll simply be shown the item title and purchase date. I don’t know why eBay haven’t added the seller ID with a clickable link as standard, which might encourage buyers to revisit sellers they’ve purchased from.

One of the most useful sections of My eBay has always been selling and sold totals. Selling totals gave an overview of likely income over the next week and sold totals was an instant check on whether business over the last month was up or down.


In the new My eBay selling totals have been hidden away on the summary page. This is critical information for sellers and really needs to be displayed on the selling and sold pages.
 
A useful feature of the old eBay was to display up to 200 items per page: the My eBay beta limits this to 100 per page. This isn’t critical, but it would be good to keep the option of 200. A slight glitch is that in items sold SIF items are showing the ended date as the date the SIF will renew, not the date the buyer made the purchase.
 

My eBay beta negative changes

There are some changes made in My eBay beta which make it less useful for buyers and unusable for sellers. Essential features for managing listings have simply been removed, and without them basic listing management is impossible.

Most of the sorting options have disappeared in My eBay Beta. You can no longer sort by number of bids, available quantity, high bidder ID, postage cost or item number: there are times when each of these is essential. The only sort options remaining are by price, time left or number of bids, along with the listing format filter.

Even worse is that you can no longer display items by shop category; when checking stock or bulk editing items from one shop category to another, this is an essential sort option.


There is now no visual indication that you have best offers waiting to be processed. Why not show “with offers” as the old my eBay did? Hiding offers aren’t going to get them actioned more quickly. For smaller sellers with a dozen items it’s not a problem as outstanding best offers are highlighted in green. But this simply doesn’t work for sellers who have more than one page of listings. The only way to check for offers is using the “View” drop down. In the same way unanswered questions from buyers are highlighted in red, but it’s impossible to sort by listings with unanswered questions.

The helpful drop down boxes with a suggested next action have been replaced with a “Take action” dropdown; adding an extra click-and-select to every transaction, this is a massive backwards step in usability. In the old eBay sellers would be presented with “Send Invoice” when an item was sold – not only simple to click but a visual indicator that they needed to take action on that listing. Buyers would be presented with reminders to pay or leave feedback, or even the suggestion to visit a seller’s shop.

“Take action” sounds great in principle, but “Send Invoice” or “Pay Now” is a much stronger call to action. There’s room under the “Take action” button for the 2 or 3 top actions, so it would make so much sense to display them.

Conclusion

The new My eBay beta is pretty; it’s just a shame it’s also pretty useless. The designers have done a great job making My eBay look swish but the usability people have forgotten it’s not just looks that count. My eBay is an essential tool but if it’s rolled out to all users in its current format, the best advice for sellers is to stop using it and upgrade to Selling Manager Pro. In comparison the old My eBay which is feature rich and works, My eBay beta is simply not good enough for managing selling activities.

22 Responses

  1. I have been using the new beta My eBay for a few weeks, and to be honest I like it.

    It is easy to set up with the information I need and remove the bits I don’t.

    On my selling account the buying section is redundant so I can collapse it leaving the information I do use.

    Being able to change the colour of the information boxes is also useful this makes it much easier to find the information I need.

    I also like the total column as this gives a snap shot of things like amount of items sold, value, active items etc………

    Lastly being able to add your own short cuts is a great idea, I have added one to Tamebay of course……………….

  2. I have to admit the total column is good, it’s just a shame it’s hidden away on a summary page that doesn’t actually summarise anything useful.

    The old summary page had the ability to display buying and selling totals but those same totals could be displayed on the “All buying” and “All selling” pages. Set your default My eBay page to “All selling” and you never needed to visit the summary page. On My eBay beta you can’t show selling totals on the “All selling” or “Active selling” pages forcing you to visit the summary page.

    Just seems pointless hiding critical information on a page that’s otherwise bereft of useful content.

  3. My eBay is an essential tool but if it’s rolled out to all users in its current format, the best advice for sellers is to stop using it and upgrade to Selling Manager Pro.

    Isn’t there a additionl fee for that?

    Wouldn’t that be the plan to begin with?

  4. How wonderful….yet another fine “improvement”. Sorry to be a grouch but my feet are planted firmly on Mother Earth so I just have to be the party pooper and ask….where’s the beef?? Where are the buyers all this wacky new stuff is supposed to bring in? Seems to me most sellers will tell you sales are down…yet Ebay is still so very busy putting lipstick on the pig!

  5. Yes there’s an additional fee, but I get SMP for free with my featured shop. I still prefer to use My eBay for most tasks though – it’s easier… but not if My eBay beta rolls in it’s current form 🙁

  6. I like most of the layout changes, but I would really need to see on my summary page when I have relisted an item for sale, or else its a real pain checking which items have sold and been relisted and which ones need attention.

  7. wheres the thumbnails in the active selling view
    I like to see what I am selling 😀
    and I also like to see if I have dropped a bollock with the pictures 😆

  8. #7 That’s a customisation – actually a good one as people on broadband can add thumbnails in and people on slow connections can leave them out 😀

  9. yeah right so how do you add them, in the regular my ebay active list, or has the dementia took a proper hold

  10. #11 I’ve not opted out, but I’m finding it increasingly difficult to work with.

    I desperately need sort by shop category

    There’s no visual indicator that you have best offers waiting bar the little drop down. What’s worse is that if you’ve submitted counter offers it then includes those as “Open Offers” so you click to process them just to find out you’re waiting for the buyer to make up their mind and it’s totally irrelevant to you. I just want to know when I’ve got best offers that need actioning, not ones I’ve already dealt with.

    However…. it is pretty :p

  11. I opted out for exactly the reason you have mentioned “Best Offers” I get them daily, sometimes hourly I don’t need any confusion I need to know when I have an offer.

  12. I must be tipped over the edge officially doolally effin tap
    active list in SMP is customisable
    I cant find anywhere to customise the active list in my ebay

  13. You have to be on My eBay beta (link to click at the top of the My eBay page if you’re not.

    Then just underneath general settings (top right) is a link to click that says “customise”

  14. “Then just underneath general settings (top right) is a link to click that says “customise””

    not on my page it dont

  15. I cannot see why they have changed it, to be honest. Why don’t they just leave things alone? I have the same feeling I get in the supermarket when they alter the shelves round! I am a creature of habit…….

  16. #3 you can get Selling Manager for free if you don’t want to pay for SMP. It’s what I use and it does what I need it to do.

  17. Hi there, i think the design is pretty cool , it will just take time getting used to it, im trying beta, will post more feedback soon.

  18. Ack I keep getting this new beta thing shoved in my face, I had a go at customising it but I HATE IT!!!!! I want selling manager to show up not this carp. I sent them a narky email and switched straight back to the old my ebay with selling manager.

  19. I opted in, tried a few days processing using it, and have now opted out.

    Form over function. Looks nice but doesn’t deliver. Customisation options are a good thing but a lot of space seems wasted and there are an irritating number of essentials which seem either to be missing or require additional manual effort. For low volume it’s probably ok but otherwise it’s hell to use.

    We seem to have lost the option to sort much of the data. For me a list of sold items in seller id order is essential (someone pls tell me i’ve missed it).

    The Font is far too small on some of the data. Buyer id in particular. It’s ok when the buyer has made multiple purchases but on the single item purchases I can barely see it.

    Number of item displayed per ‘screen’ is consideraby reduced.

    There seems to be at least one extra click for each frequently used function.

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