The online retailer Ebay is going through major changes in order to increase sales during this upcoming holiday season. With much of the same properties as its competitor and online retail giant, Amazon.com, Ebay has changed its focus to developing its technological foundations. Some of the projects they’re working on is to provide a whole new home page that is more attractive to the online customer and building a product catalog. The homepage will provide recommendations based on previous searches and for a few technological devices, pages consisting of certain models of those products have begun to arise, “consolidating the sometimes thousands of different listings by sellers and highlighting the best deals at the top.”
Here is another online retailer trying to revamp their image and increase their sales. Looking at the homepage, I feel as if Ebay re-designed the page to look more like other online retailers: logo on the top left, horizontal menu bar, drop-down menu on the left, picture in the middle, a few links on the left, and other pertinent information below. The page looks much cleaner and easier to navigate, but I’m not impressed. I’m impressed with what this company is trying to do to make the site more user-friendly because already, there is a great customer following, and I feel like this will increase brand loyalty as well as attract more customers. I have often heard people selling their ideas on how to get rich quick with eBay. These new changes may add to the next volume of e-commerce trading secrets.
By Leya Abebe
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What about the flip side of these changes: does making the site more uniform make it also seem more generic? Ebay, in its goals and structure, is far from typical. However, its website now seems more boring and typical. Do you think there is a way for Ebay to spice it up, differentiate itself from the norm, etc. without sacrificing navigability? Also, whenever there is a change like this, for better or for worse, consumers are not always appreciative. A good example of this is Facebook. Facebook changes its layout every few months. People initially hate it, but then come to enjoy its convenience. Do you think there will be negative feedback to the site at first?
ReplyDeleteCatherine Reeves