When eBay separated from PayPal in July 2015, they made a promise that they would bring their ecommerce business up to the next level. The investments and innovation have surely been worth it – eBay is back on top!
At least according to the Tenet Partners’ “2016 Top Most Powerful Brands.” The report, released just last month, saw eBay grab the number 29 spot. But that’s not even the most impressive thing.
While it is still behind other behemoths like Apple, Google, and Starbucks, eBay is actually ranked the top ecommerce business. Where’s Amazon? All the way down at number 54.
So what has eBay done to get itself back into the top ecommerce position? Here are some of the most impressive recent updates to the brand:
Improvements to Mobile
To keep up with trends and shifts in how users shop, eBay decided to make improving its mobile app priority. They’ve made updates on readability, navigation, and overall design. eBay’s mobile app now better reflects the regular website, making navigation more familiar and more accessible overall.
Descriptions of products are now easier to read while you’re shopping through the mobile app as well. Searching for products on mobile devices has become a lot easier and quicker, while still offering similar options to shoppers and customizing the shopping experience.
A Shift in Focus: New Products and New Markets
eBay’s not just the place to sell your old stuff anymore. It’s not just the marketplace for buying someone’s old stuff anymore either. eBay has polished its marketplace to provide new, high-quality, and innovative products throughout its site.
One of the most interesting examples of this is eBay’s superior listing of wine. The company now has a marketplace for finding different types of wine: whether you are looking for a specific, rare variety or an everyday wine to break open at your next dinner party, eBay wants to bring that wine to you. The site now boasts over 14,000 listings in its wine collection from 500 different regions.
Finding Products Has Never Been Easier
The initial beauty of eBay was the enormous number of products and stuff you could find while navigating through the site. But as the site has grown and more sellers have started to use it, the number of products actually became a burden.
For many buyers looking for specific items, eBay was overwhelming and felt a little unorganized. In eBay’s 2016 updates, the site did a lot of work to address this problem.
First, they made a plan to better catalog and organize their inventory, a behind-the-scenes step that will begin the process for organizing and delivering the products you’re looking for to the top of your search results.
These efforts have already been applied to the site. New browsing flows and algorithms to make like products show up have already made the shopping experience more accessible and more convenient for shoppers to enjoy.
But more plans and technologies are set to make steady changes throughout the next few years – 2016 is just the start of a new era for eBay.
Use of Artificial Intelligence
One of the solutions eBay has used to make searching for products easier is to recruit the help of machine learning artificial intelligence.
In 2016, eBay acquired Expertmaker, which has been helping the ecommerce site find solutions through the use of artificial intelligence. For starters, artificial intelligence has helped the site conduct conversations with customers who need assistance.
Now eBay wants to step even further into the future by introducing and integrating artificial intelligence into different areas of the shopping experience.
What’s clear is that eBay is not thinking just one step ahead – it’s thinking two, three, and even 10 steps ahead on how it can bring a better shopping experience to customers and sellers alike.
If you’ve never sold on eBay or have been thinking about returning, there’s never been a better time than now.
