If you’ve spotted some things on eBay UK looking a bit different in the last few days, you’re not (necessarily) going mad. Lots of users are reporting seeing a variety of different things, some staying put and some disappearing with a refresh of the page. Here are some of the changes we’ve seen.
Most significant is a change to the navigation bar at the top of the page. “eBay Motors” has been added, and some users are reporting seeing a “Fashion Outlet” button here as well as the normal “Outlet” one. This presumably is linking to the new fashion site for brands: contrary to what eBay told us at the time, the general Outlets tab has stayed too.
Non-outlet sellers are quite rightly asking why, when this tiny group of stores merits two links, we can’t have the old “Shops” tab back as well: there’s plenty of room left on that navigation bar.
Then there are a bunch of fiddly little changes that will doubtless cause eBay users to wonder why those things are being changed when there are Great Big Things that need fixing rather a lot more urgently. The disappearance of the underlining on forum topic titles has caused some comment, with even eBay UK’s community manager saying that “personally I’m not a fan” of the change.
For no good reason I can see, the Search button at the top of the page sometimes goes lime green. This one sometimes happens and sometimes doesn’t for me. Confused? You soon will be.
There are also changes to the details shown in search results, with seller name showing in list view, and proximity in gallery view. Seller name is a nice idea: as a buyer, I like to be able to spot my favourites and avoid some other sellers easily, and for sellers, it all adds to name recognition.
Proximity though is largely-useless crud on the page – I honestly don’t care if a CD or a pair of shoes comes from Lands End or John O’Groats. If I were in the market for a big heavy bit of furniture, I’d be more than happy to do a special search by area just for that, but it’s not needed for the vast majority of eBay purchases, and is only going to lead to more buyers expecting lowered postage costs “because you’re only down the road from me” (think I’m joking? I’m so not).
Many thanks to Jon from for the screenshots and the heads up.
What have you seen? If you’ve spotted anything we haven’t, leave us a comment (and grab a screenshot if you can).
(And ten points to the house of your choice for the movie in the title.)
Updated to add:
Pics of the old and new versions of search supplied by the lovely :
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Old version |
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New version |
The new version seems to make better use of screen space – and it didn’t take long for them to start shrinking the TRS badge, did it?!
4 Responses
Is that a reference to the totally bodacious Bill & Teds Excellent Adventure, or is it something much more highbrow?
Maybe a reference to Nero and Rome could be an alternative post title?
God, Sue
I thought it was only me the Scotch bottle was talkng too……..only Joking (I hope!!)