eBay are expected to announce the launch of the new eBay shops today, but the are already live on the site. The image to the side shows what a standard eBay shop will look like under the new experience.
If you already have an eBay shop you can upgrade today to the new cleaner three column design. Staying with the old layout will be an option for at least a couple of months before upgrading becomes compulsory.
The main advantages of the new shops experience (according to eBay) are the new design with sleek, professional templates and promo boxes to attract buyers and keep them coming back. Better and more relevant searches within eBay shops which will include titles, categories, item specifics, and even similar keywords for more relevant results. Finally eBay aim to provide consistent streamlined buying experience throughout the whole of their site.
If you want to try the new shops experience you can . Once you’ve opted in if you wish to revert to the old shop layout you can opt out using links in Manage My Shop.
If you’ve got any questions on the new shops check out eBay’s or post in comments below.
85 Responses
BTW eBay… In the UK we say “Shops” not “Stores”! Who did you get to write the intro page? 😯
I like the new look 🙂
Mine looks like a pile of mixed up poop! All big gaps and all wrong, why is that? The page is about a foot wide and 5 foot long!
#3 Gotta be your shop header I guess – have you tried it without the header?
Oh I like that.. changed over straight away. Fortunately, I had no alterations to the basic template other than colour changes, so everything seems to fit fine.
Hi Chris, have you tried previewing with your Frooition Shop Design?
#6 Yes – but when I wrote this Froo were still in bed – will get the Froo upgrade done later 🙂
Thumbs up from me, looks far more up to date, nice one eBay
Looks nice. Too bad they can’t do that with My eBay.
I like it BUT my scrolling promotion boxes have stopped, erm, scrolling. Odd.
#10 That’s one of the… erm… improvements! 😛
Buyers now have to click em to make em scroll – easier on the eye
I want the scrolling back. Otherwise, nice.
I think the non scrolling is wonderful
that scrolling malarky is so dated and naff, other than the seller, nobody really thinks that folk watch the scrolling do they ?
I’ve now got a huge white gap to the right of my store logo.
If they put a flash banner advert in there, I won’t be held responsible for my actions…
Now we have the new eBay Shop layout, has anyone got any ideas when the new listing lay out will become live to complement it?
Thanks,
Sean
And what is the point in this?
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
It looks as crap as the new eBay listing design.
Chris I notice you now have your Frooition New Store Experience installed, not sure about the two shop headers, and two shop descriptions but the central black promo box is quite good
What Bob said really, the 2 shop headers look odd. Did Frooition give you a preview of it before you paid for it Chris? has this affected everyone?
does every compliant frooition customer now have 2 shop headers?
I had a look at some non compliant shops and they only had one.
Whoa there, it’s a work in progress 😉 There’s still quite a few tweaks to go including headers, keywords, make the search box work etc, and a few stray bits of the old design code still knocking around, but it’s shaping up nicely.
I wasn’t gonna mention it was live until it was finished, just shut your eyes and don’t look until it’s finished! You’re as bad as kids feeling Christmas presents to try and guess what they are 😛
#19 My apologies, I thought you had paid Frooition to do that, didn’t realise you had to do it yourself.
#20 Sheesh I’m not doing it myself! I wouldn’t have a clue where to start 😀 It’s as you thought, I’m just watching from the sidelines 😛
As it seems to be a pick on Mounty thread 😆
Your display default is set to time ending soonest and the right hand side bar is set to the same.
Feel free to crucify my shop in return 😆
Chris are frooition beta testing on your shop? 🙂 The design (at present) only seems to be on the shops home page – is this just with the beta version or will the frooition shop template no longer cover all the shop categories?
Chris Dawsons Froo shop page is nice. its interesting. but I think its just that bit busy overstocked and complicated.
If I were Chris I would be pushing his outstanding service and reliability. his second to none feedback etc,
you can get a data lead, monitor ,anywhere
Chis should sell himself more
Mine doesn’t look any different to what it does now.
I might add over stock might be the problem with ebay as a whole
I recently looked for a computer monitor on ebay ,as ebay have very kindly gave us a coupon,
my heads wrecked trying to decide which I want, and who from . I think I will just go to PC world , its much more simple,
you just pay, and you take it away, job done
I wouldnt pay for for that upgrade for frooiton ebay have taken away all the customisation and you can only see it on the front page.
Not worth 400 quid upgrade fee and 20 quid a month subs.
Like I said before 2 headers and 2 shop descriptions looks silly. I think a lot of Frooition customers wont be happy when they realise it only shows on shop landing page. On my wide monitor is looks worse since the eBay shop header stretches to the whole width but the Frooition header desn’t.
Another fact to consider if using the frooition listing template with shop categories down the side, clicking one of those means your shop landing page will not be seen as it will take you to shop categories which have the bog standard eBay layout not your frooition design.
Im just gonna get someone to do a css rollover and color change for 20 quid. Not worth 400 quid and 20 quid a month, also im gonna dump my frooition listing. I am the copyright holder anyway. I can get it remade to be similar.
Not worth the price anymore !
#29 £400 is that what you have been quoted for the upgrade? I thought it was going to be around £100
as soon as sandbox works again, i will test the code. Its not worth upgrading in my view. Also the listing display upgrade means frooitions listings are to wide to look good.
Yes frooition have excellent designs and features. But the upgrade ebay have in place make them not worth it. Especially as subscriptions gone up. I dont think there is any value in frooition anymore.
but it was fun while it lasted. !
To be honest I would be well miffed to have paid frooition an upgrade fee which made my shop look “silly”. Possibly a more accurate description would be a downgrade.
Has anyone seen an actual live example of a frooition shop, which has had the upgrade?
£400 for the upgrade? What additional features do you have to warrant such a cost?
£1 or £400 it not worth it. The listings are all wrong for the new layout.
#32 Jimbo the only one I have seen is Chris’s – Mount Road Computers – downgrade I think you hit the nail, unless there is more to come, here’s hoping
Bob, Chris’s isn’t the end product though is it? I’m not sure why a half finished project has been installed on a live shop though. Surely frooition would test there projects elsewhere.
#36 I think it may well be the completed ‘upgrade’ as on frooition website it says “Instead of re-skinning the eBay store we are now creating you an improved custom eBay store page” and “Traditional eBay layout for store searches and category pages”
#36,37
If I paid for that and it was the end product I would be seriously pissed off.
Has anyone noticed a huge drop in traffic since opting in?
I have and its got me wondering, business is still pretty steady but omniture recorded traffic has gone from a daily avg of 1400 to 400ish since I opted in..
I want to opt back out but I can’t find the blasted link?
#39 something to do with the changed URLs and Google Base I think
Whirly, the link to opt back out is in manage my shop. I had the same problem – just dead for the 3 days I was opted into the new one. Have opted out again, as have neither time nor inclination to mess about figuring out what the problem is – opted out early last evening, sales all okay last night. Hardly enough data to build a theory on, but I don’t care – it’s what’s in my PayPal account that matters.
#41 Thanks Sue, just found it. Going to post a picture in the forum shortly, I have now opted out so will see what the picture looks like tomorrow.
hmm i was going to look at opting in and playing with the new layout, as it should be a lot easier to play with now that ebay are using ID and class tags, however if people are having problems with traffic to their shops then i think i’ll wait until ebay have sorted that.
incidently does anyone know when ebay will officially be announcing this?
it’s rather disappointing that custom designed shop ‘front ends’ will no longer display in the custom pages and search results 🙁 as personally i can’t see any real difference to the old shop page (apart from the 3 columns instead of 2). it still looks rather rubbish imho.
you can try on sandbox.ebay.com but not working right now !
Whirly/Sue I’ve just checked the the traffic stats and sure enough they’re down… Opted out and will keep an I on what they do over the next few days. I don’t suppose anyone has had a response from eBay?
I’m down 40% too.
My sales are good though. I think it is a problem with the reporting rather than traffic. I’ve still opted out though….
Off topic. Anyone had their refunds back for the VAT relistings?
#47 Mine are steady, but I am showing 300 or so visits a day since I opted in, so its recording something.
Maybe I only have had 300 visits and just had a good week on that number if that makes sense.
OT. No, and got bored of asking.
Cheers for that Sue, I’ve just had a read…
Some people think that the drop in visits are because the Google Base feeds aren’t running properly. Has anyone seen a problem with their Feeds?
However, I can’t see any evidence that our Base feeds are any different to normal!
Hopefully it’s just a reportin issue, but we didn’t seem to be as busy at the end of this week. Coincidence?
Rich
Chris can you confirm if your shop is finished and the two headers and descriptions will stay? I need to consider ‘upgrade’ or let my shop disapear in March or when ever it becomes compulsary.
I can’t confirm it’s finished cos it’s not. I’ll let you know when it is 🙂
ebay have stated
* Do not externalize CSS.
(wich they now block)
* Do not use ID-based or structural CSS rules, since they may change in our later releases.
* Do not use eBay-defined CSS classes, since these may change in our later releases.
I was just wondering are the 2nd and 3rd rules more of a guide line? “since these may change in our later releases.
can u use structural css at your own cost?
#53 If you use em on your own listings then not advisable but they don’t appear to totally ban it. If your a designer selling templates then imagine the day your clients ring you up when it breaks! 😯
Also remember that eBay now (on the new listing page) host the listing description in an iframe so calling attributes outside the description area is a lot more tricky than previously.
#54
I was think more for shop design, centering pages etc just basic stuff but at times using ebay tags
I found a forum comment (or maybe an eBay help thing, somewhere, don’t ask me where now) when I was redoing my templates that said that CSS didn’t work in eBay if you put it at the top, where you normally would as it conflicted with eBay’s own CSS coding. However, if you put your CSS code at the very end, after all the HTML of the template, it works fine.
I did my templates that way, and they seem to have no problems at all.
We had the worst last 4/5 days ever on ebay – was it confirmed there was a problem caused by the shops upgrade ?
I was blaming the weather.
I couldn’t tell from the PS board if people are saying it is just a reporting problem
Chris
Our sales are also down, traffic is about the same though.
#53 by ‘externalise’, do ebay mean call if from elsewhere? we call our css from a file we host on our website, using javascript, as there is far too much of it to put directly into ebay. on the preview page this still shows up fine, which is why i’m unsure if this is what they mean, because it’s not being blocked.
Regarding ID-based or structural CSS rules, and eBay-defined CSS classes, i’m reading that as guidelines, rather than rules, as there will be far too many people doing it for them to police properly. Also i have a sneaking suspicion that Frooition will be using them, and may even have suggested to ebay that they use IDs and Classes in the first place.
#54 chris, trying to change the listing page outside of the description area is expressly against ebay site interference rules. I haven’t had any problems with HTML or CSS in the Listing description, even with the new design.
#59 I didn’t meant that 😯 I meant calling things like the item number for use in things such as calling the correct vzaar video into your template where your code needs to know the listing number.
Sorry if I’ve missed this topic.
Has anyone noticed that if you opt out of the new beta search pages on UK then shop listings appear under the main listing pages just like before.
In my catagory only my auctions show and mainly US multiple BIN listings.
If you then opt back in they’re all in the main search again
I thought they were supposed to be in the main search.
Has anyone tested the new store experience by Frooition with stores OTHER than the UK and US. I am finding them unresponsive and broken on other TLDs. My main clients sells mostly to Europe, so upgrading the shop with Frooition is a risk at the moment. Chris will you test yours on the different sites? I would rather them get it right before I upgrade, we have a little time yes?
I would rather go with no design than it not work in Europe and Oz.
#62 Are there any “new store experience by Frooition” stores live?
Just to keep everyone updated:
“We are working with Omniture to identify the issue that you’re seeing regarding page views and believe this is a reporting issue only. It should not be affecting sales and I’ll update you more as I get news.”
James’ latest comment from the Powerseller discussion board. I think it’s probably down to the page name change during the test period, but I’m staying out until that’s been confirmed.
im in the process of updating my shop to the new layout
ebay gave me this reply when I asked about the use of css that controls the layout, basically I wana place the rule in my header that gives a 200px left/right margin on all my pages and centers it.
“We no longer support any customisations that conflict with our Site
Interference Policy. Some typical conflicts include taking over the eBay
global header or changing the appearance of the in-store search items
list.”
the part im interested in is the “appearance of the in-store search items list” does this mean the search box in the left hand side of my shop? and the results page provided by using this search?
so if i add the rule to my header this would affect the results page thus breaking the rules?
I believe that it means “Don’t mess with the header and leave the item display as a standard eBay “List” or “Gallery” (now three column) view.
#65 “changing the appearance of the in-store search items
list” I think this refers to the gallery view in the shop, previously the likes of Frooition allowed you to change the backgound, include borders etc around your products gallery images. From now on all will have to be displayed with the plain white backgound and standard eBay layout drastically reducing the amount of customisation of shops allowed.
Chris I know you will say it not finished 🙂 but your ‘Star Item’ etc. when clicked are being blocked by IE pop-up blocker as they try to open a new window so making them next to useless. Also the images in the central promo box are not clickable only the text not making it particularly user friendly. I think the solution to the two headers problem is a bit lame, i.e. scrap the Frooition header but keep the eBay shop header – surely they can come up with someting better than that?
Frooition said, “We have a solution that is ready to go, easy to preview and easy to install.” Judging on how long it is taking to sort your shop out this doesn’t seem the case.
#66 so chris is that why your store has a white gallary list background? does ebay not allow you to place backings on the items in this list anymore.
#68 Good point about the pop up blocker – I detest IE for being so crap (why don’t people use FF? 😀 ) I’ll ask Froo about that
#69 I like white 😀 Part of my original design brief was that the page should be white.
#70
the gallary list item backings on most froo designs are backed with a box containing maybe the shop clients logo and a colour that matches the rest of the shop.
I was just wondering wether you chose to have your item gallary list all white or wether this was a rule breaker in the eyes of ebay so it had to be white.
I cant believe ebay have done this and also put out such a wishy washy set of rules that dont confirm anything with regard to css customation.
What im starting to think is ebay are just saying do a custom page and have what you like on it but as soon as a vistor leaves that page to a cat or whatever its back to the horride, dated discrace of an ebay shop design.
#70 Chris the version of Firefox I have installed also blocks the pop up (3.0.6).
#70 so is that it, no more Frooition shop headers just the crappy eBay bog standard shop header with your own logo? If so the future for custom ‘advanced’ eBay shop designers looks far from rosy. So even if you pay for the so called ‘upgrade’ and the company goes belly up you loose your design as they host it.
Re Frooition:
Trading Assistant Journal
Id love to know how froo are pulling the store tags through flash, I like that
I think Frooition are far from ready to upgrade their users to the ‘New store Experience’. With Pop-up blockers preventing promoted items opening, being stuck with the standard eBay header and the shop design only working on a custom shop page, I don’t think they have the solutions.
How can that be? Phillip Molloy the MD of Frooition told Tamebay that they had been working closely with eBay for a number of months to ensure that are ready to upgrade their customers to take advantage of the changes (14/01/09).
https://www.tamebaynew.wpengine.com/2009/01/ebay-announces-new-ebay-shop-design.html
Wonder if Paul Daniels is still involved with Frooition, if so he may be able to wave a magic wand and sort things out 🙂
Looks like Pauls moved into modelling
https://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2009/02/17/photos-paul-daniels-and-debbe-mcgee-mimic-david-and-victoria-beckham-115875-21129563/
Is anybody that is still opted into the new layout using Google Store Connector? I’ve read a post that suggest it causes a problem…
has ebay actually announced this yet? i can’t find an announcement.
if not, they’re leaving it very late, with sellers only given a months notice now before they’re forced to switch…
#70
Chris,
you’re normally a champion of clean, uncluttered and highly functional design – so what possesed you to allow Frooition to insert that awful flash gallery into your shop design?! 😕 The images are virtually meaningless (badly pixelated / distorted), plus, the flash transition mech and the reflections below the images are pure tack!
The ‘old’ version was much easier to view, IMHO. Is that what Frooition customers are paying a £100+ upgrade fee for? Are you sure this is an upgrade? Or, is it a last minute bolt-on to justify charging to fix something that shouldn’t have broken in the first place?
#82 Paulus_maximus
Come on then, let’s see your shop, listings and website.
We’ll offer you ‘constructive criticism’ free of charge. Happily.
Come on mate, if it’s sauce, it’s sauce for the gander. Bit naff to slag and hide. ;o)
#82 Actually it’s not Frooitions images that are shite, it’s my original images as I’m a pretty poor photographer 😀 If I had decent images to start with it would look a million times better 😀
Also it should be noted that I have total control over which flash galleries are displayed in my Frooition shop – It’s one of the benefits of the upgrade. Plus I can take the code and display the galleries on other sites should I so choose and they’d update with live eBay feeds which is pretty cute.
I’ve chosen to add the flash gallery in the center along with a star item on the left, two galleries on the right hand side and another just below the shop pages section.
Do you think I should turn em all off due to my photography skills (or lack of!), bearing in mind that most of my buyers purchase based on a part number in the first place, or should I keep them as a (admittedly badly pixelated / distorted) guide to confirm the part number they’re looking for is actually the correct item for sale? 😉
(PS If anyone would like to come photograph approx 300 product lines and produce decent images for me at a quid a shot I’ll happily cough up. It’s really not my strong point!)
James (a Pink on the Powersellers Forum) has said that the reporting issue to Omniture has been fixed, so perhaps now we’ll have a clearer picture as to whether the new format effects sales or not!
He’s also denies that there’s a compulsory switch despite the eBay announcement page saying it will change over at the end of the month. Left and right hand not talking to each other again???