The staffer behind the new eBay Interests product has published a blog post and video about the thinking and development of the new feature. We wrote about it on Tamebay last week: eBay Shop your Interests feature launches on app.
The idea of Interests is to offer shoppers a personalised shopping experience and present them with a variety of items that they believe buyers will be pleased to see. They ask you a few questions, consider your past shopping information and use their wealth of marketplace data to determine the goods presented. In this new post they say the new product “aims to inspire with a store just for you.”
You can read the full article here.
As he says of the genesis of the eBay Interests product:
When my team and I started out, we embodied a philosophy of creating human-centric structures based on simple questions that frame each individual’s shopping experience and will ultimately lead you to find your version of perfect. What do you like to do after work? What do you obsess about? What is your style? Who do you cheer for at concerts or sports games? This is a radically different way of thinking about our taxonomy when compared to products or categories—but it is actually reflective of how real people shop. You don’t want to go into a mall in which every store is “Sweater Store,” “Shoe Store” and “Chair Store.”
– Evan Thomas, Sr. Product Manager, Shopping Experience, eBay
As it stands it’s difficult to assess how good or innovative the eBay Interests product is because it’s currently only available to USA users through the eBay app. But it does sounds like a very similar product to the previous Collections homepage feature. But technology has improved greatly in the intervening years with developments in AI and machine learning, and eBay has made formidable investments, so we look forward to seeing how it works.
