Tuesday 9 October 2012

eBay tweak search listings to aid small stores

eBay have made a few alterations to their search results, opting to remove the 'New Shopping Experience' product cards and simply sort results by the best match only.

The 'New Shopping Experience' launched in 2011 was originally intended to rival Amazon's product layouts by placing product cards within the various search results that have the title of the product and then states how many of these are available to buy new, refurbished, used and in the next auction. 

The problem many eBay stores found with this feature was that the search results were rather top heavy with the bigger store's products, meaning that new or not as established online stores often saw their traffic and sales suffer as a result. While it was seemingly good for the customer in terms of grouping a particular product for sale together, it meant that some online stores may have their products appear high up the search results even though they may not have merited it.

The removal of the 'New Shopping Experience' now means that for all ecommerce stores selling within the eBay marketplace, their product ranking within search results will now be entirely dependant on how closely they match the search criteria that the customer has entered. Read 'A detailed guide to increasing your sales on eBay' for detailed information on how you can tailor your eBay products to ensure you have the best chance of appearing as high up the best match search results as possible. 

According to an email sent out by Michael Jones, eBay's Vice President of Merchant Development, the removal of the 'New Shopping Experience' feature is an attempt at "simplifying the path between a buyer's search for popular products and your listings." However, the question many people are now asking is that, now the product cards have been removed, should sellers still use the catalogue feature in order to list their products? The answer in undoubtedly yet. While the product cards feature has been removed, it is thought that eBay will continue to develop the catalogue feature, allowing sellers to specifically link their products to the correct categories, allowing customers to come across the product easier if it is something they are searching for. 



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