Yesterday, eBay announced The Feed. It’s live immediately for around 10% of users and will roll out to all users by the end of the year. At some point it’ll be coming to eBay UK and the rest of the world and this is kind of a big deal as it replaces the eBay homepage.
First thing to ask is, what’s it replacing? The answer is mainly advertising. That’s going to cost eBay a fair amount and while it won’t affect most sellers it’s going to hurt the Outlets used to having homepage takeovers.
Once you opt in to The Feed you’ll find a single banner at the top of the page but everything else is based on your interests. No two people’s eBay homepage will be the same – everyone gets their own personal view.
Get to know The Feed
If you want to have a preview of The Feed, then you can opt in by going to . You’ll see a bunch of suggestions with a feed set up by eBay, but as soon as you start picking your own interests, you’ll get your own custom Feed based on the things you like.
Why this matters to sellers is that it allows buyers to find what you have for sale. If your interests are hoodies; laptops; televisions; and ladies tops then you might see a fair proportion of items from Outlets. If however your interests are Dr Who; Startrek; Beethoven; and Monet you’re going to see a very different Feed.
Impact for Sellers
The Feed is going to be great news for sellers with unique inventory such as collectables, art and antiques. If you happen to be selling Kangxi Chinese porcelain your items will show up in the feed of any collectors who have added Kangxi to their Feed.
Images have always been crucial on eBay and they become even more so now because eBay will have image quality algorithms in place. White backgrounds are always preferable, but borders, watermarks and busy backgrounds may result in your products being dropped.
Use of catalogue and Item Specifics will ensure that as buyers filter their feed, your products are included. Currently filters are category, format, condition and price, but I’d expect these to be increased, especially for fashion to enable size filters.
What does it look like
That really depends upon what your interests are. The eBay homepage is transformed into an infinitely scrollable page – the only limit is when eBay run out of products that match your interests.
You may see some Daily Deals featured in your Feed. eBay are likely to experiment with products that could be enticing to you, but mostly your Feed is stuff you’ve expressed an interest in. The Feed will automatically notify you when there are new listings that match your interests and a cut down header floats at the top of the page with the basic navigation options.
The Feed
25 Responses
I like it, dare I say, it’s very Pinterest 🙂
Something I do like. There is no way any of my buyers are going to be interested in the current home page content. Home page content that is more relevent to their interests should have the effect of increasing the number of return visits to ebay and possibly to my listings.
if I were a collector of kangxi china I would not rely on the off chance ebays feed would show me it, I would simply enter and save a specific search
fresh and glitzy now, I wonder if a buyer will know or care what was on their home page,in a few weeks time, it has every chance of becoming a pretty background collage thats ignored
Er, isn’t this what Etsy do??? Come on Ebay, don’t imitate, innovate!!
As a seller of collectables, this does it for me.
I gave up a proper job to trade full-time on eBay and was a bit jumpy with some of developments earlier this year.
Nice to see eBay did listen to the smaller guys after all.
It’s interesting that ebay are putting more emphasis on quality of image like Amazon’s strict jewellery white backgrounds.
I’m sure the days will not be far off when ebay will require white backgrounds, no borders or watermarks.
I think with personalized pages you are more likely to notice something out the corner of your eye that you have some vague interest in rather than me looking at a car or a dress I have no interest in.
I want the free extra images though.
Come on ebay when will the UK get them.
USA have em and Aus but not yet for us.
Anyone any ideas when we will get them.
ttfn
Simon
Am i the only one who thinks this is to benefit the outlets.
ie will the feed be based on what (a sort of best match ) pointing at the outlets.
kangxi china rare but what if you prefer DVD,s or something more popular there wont be room for all so will it be best sellers or what.
this sentence says it all for me
[quote] If your interests are hoodies; laptops; televisions; and ladies tops then you might see a fair proportion of items from Outlets[quote]
It’s like taking a stroll through a carboot sale; I like carboot sales.
I didn’t think eBay had good vision but they’re making a fair few bold moves of late and, well, I’m liking it.
Finally they seem to be coming of age! To be honest I thought they’d lost it for a while but actually they were just busy growing a set of balls.
Seriously – when did any of you ever visit or need eBays ‘home page’ ?
I am assuming, like me, most sellers and buyers have their entry preference page bookmarked, such as My eBay, or list of items selling, I personally could not even describe eBays current home page if my life depended upon it, its that long ago since I visited one
This is AWESOME! Yes of course people don’t bother with the current homepage. Reason? Because it’s not worth bothering with. It’s irrelevant. But by making the homepage personalised to your tastes? Bingo!
Customers will come to love this. So what if it’s similar to pinterest, it’s not like pinterest invented the concept of images boards and even if they did, if by imitating them a little it helps customers become more engaged, return more often and buy more items, what on earth is wrong with that? Amazon is going to look like the surgery wall of a 1950’s prison kazi in comparison.
Well done ebay!
I love these new features ebay are delivering on their site. Exciting times for retailers using this marketplace.
and we are extremely excited by the removal of links to our ebay store. yeah exciting times for retailers