Thursday, July 17th, 2008
eBay Desktop Turns 1 Million; Steve Jobs likes “Meat and Potatoes” eBay iPhone App
Earlier this week, the eBay Desktop application was downloaded for the 1,000,000th time… not bad for staying fairly under the radar since it was first launched back in February. According to Alan Lewis over on the eBay Desktop Blog, this is more than double what was expected at this point of the year. Congratulations to Alan and the team on this milestone!
Alan and I had managed to sit down over coffee last week to talk about the success of the Desktop app, the launch of the eBay app on iPhones and just about work here at eBay in general. It was a pretty enlightening discussion in which we shared wish lists for future revs of the Desktop app and I found out exactly what Steve Jobs thought of the eBay app for iPhone.
eBay Desktop
According to Alan, the majority of initial users of the Desktop application are those folks that are ahead of the technology curve, willing to try new things. He also pointed out that the interaction on Desktop vs. eBay.com is philosophically different with the former being more personal and the latter being more open and social. In a follow-up discussion, Alan indicated that the in-person usability study went quite well last week so I’d like to get more info on that too.
We both agreed that the seller functionality is needed on the Desktop application to propel it into more of a mainstream status and it appears that this functionality is written into the product timeline (no hints on dates here though I’m afraid). On the flip-side, one of my personal favorite features of eBay Desktop is “Search Feeds” or simply “Feeds”. This feature allows you to access your favorite searches or create new ones, and view them as “feeds” just as you would in an RSS reader. You can also see if an item is new and delete items you’re not interested in. As the Desktop application gains more traction this feature will need to be addressed on ebay.com too because users will come to expect it.
eBay iPhone Application
I had written about the eBay iPhone application back at the beginning of June and now that it’s live, I’d like to have a sit down with Ken Sun and Alan about the future plans of the app (including international plans). I did ask Alan what Steve Jobs thought of the application when Ken first demoed it to him in his office and his first impression was that he called it a real “meat and potatoes application” - something that actually brings value to the iPhone customer and not just a flashy feature. I guess when the app was first featured on the homepage it received 3 times the normal number of click-thrus and enjoyed the highest percentage of click-thrus for that slot.
On working at eBay
Alan has been with eBay for 4 and a half years now and we talked about the changes he has seen over the past few years and what his observations are overall. Sure, we talked about all the great things about working here at eBay and why we come to work every day but I wanted to talk about ways in which we could do better as a company.
He stressed that he feels communication has been flawed at times and that we need to do a better job communicating directly with all of our constituencies. Something we’ve talked a lot about here on Ink. He also talked about the shift in priorities. He contends that from 1999 to 2004, the company’s biggest priority was keeping up with the growth of the site and most decisions were made with scalability in mind. As a result, site usability ultimately suffered somewhat. Since that time, all new feature and product enhancements have been focused squarely on the user experience. Right now, we’re focusing on the buyer experience because this was a more neglected area during the time of great scalability… having said that, he also indicated that he didn’t feel like it is a buyer vs. seller approach (a lot of the time eBay users are both) but that every decision made is targeted at the overall user experience.
All in all, a very interesting discussion and one that I want to continue with him in the near future. Looping Ken Sun in too so we can chat more about the iPhone App.
Cheers,
RBH
Tagged: alan+lewis, apple, desktop, ebay, ebay desktop, ebay mobile, ebay on iphone, iphone, ken+sun, mobile, steve+jobs
TonyOn 07.19.2008 at 3:40 am Said:
“Would it not be better to simply decline to accept that sellers listing and tell him to go away?”
Not only would it be better Henrietta, it would actually display some ethics. Taking money from people and deliberately giving them an inferior service is not the actions a company with a good customer service output should be looking to do, it’s really poor form.
As for the ebay desktop application, it always concerns me when an application is ahead of the curve, you need to actively encourage the average user to feedback to you. I know that that’s what you’d like but the guy or girl who isn’t impressed by bells and whistles can provide some fantastic observations on usability.
kimbersOn 07.20.2008 at 6:56 am Said:
I think at least some part of the “new and improved” eBay’s revenue generation was absolutely based on the CTR, otherwise, why run advertising that take you off site?
Mr. Donahoe’s comment about assuming everything was a cause and effect due to a decline in sellers tells me 1)he still doesn’t get the whole picture and I hope he stops blaming the sellers for everything someday soon. Sheesh.
Is there a decline in sellers? Absolutely. I’m one of them. Under this system as it is currently set up, I have such limited visibility and so many new requirements foisted on me that it is no longer cost effective to list here.
What Mr Donahoe doesn’t seem to understand is that I am a buyer too and my experience as a seller has colored my view of eBay to the point where I just don’t want to shop here either.
The buyer vs seller, not to mention seller vs seller, atmosphere that has been created here has just pulled the air right out of the room. It’s no longer welcoming as either a buyer or a seller and it’s no longer a fun or efficent experience. My shopping dollars are being spent elsewhere and I certainly am not finding those places coming to eBay and doing a click through.
I keep checking back in the hopes that I’ll see a little bit of what I used to love about this place come back and eventually, I’ll probably stop doing that too.
At times, like right this minute, when I have the house to myself and peace and quiet, I long for the days when I could scroll through listings that I chose for myself (as opposed to eBay determining what they think I want based on their own criteria)for hours looking for and buying the perfect things. eBay made it so easy to do.
~~~sigh~~~
Patricia1On 07.20.2008 at 2:47 pm Said:
@Kimbers - I couldn’t agree with you more! Especially this:
“Is there a decline in sellers? Absolutely. I’m one of them. Under this system as it is currently set up, I have such limited visibility and so many new requirements foisted on me that it is no longer cost effective to list here.”
Every now and then I come back and put a couple auctions on just to see what they will do. I presently have 4 that have been running for 4 days and collected only 79 views among them - actually only 2 views in ALL of yesterday. I have 100 percent feedback and DSR’s of 5.0 and used to have 25 to 50 auctions running constantly - so does Ebay expect to keep me with this kind of shoddy service? NO - they NO LONGER bring buyers and sellers together!!! I don’t care who they blame - bottom line is they have left nothing on Ebay to attract me or sellers like me to sell OR to buy on their site. I presently support etsy both buying and selling there along with ioffer, ecrater, onlineauctions, artbyus and my own website. This is not rare - Ebay, this is now the NORM among your “used to be sellers!” Get real, come down to earth before its too late (I kind of think its already too late). One day you’re going to issue yet another wacky policy and there will be nobody there to jump thru the hoops anymore!
Right now, I plan to just sit back and watch the disaster that is bound to be Q3!
vzaar JamieOn 07.21.2008 at 9:01 am Said:
The Brewsnews
As an ex eBay employee I used to monitor and track feedback gained by the staff in the eBay UK offices, in London.
I did this with the MD’s consent because, to some of your point, it was a great way to measure just how much interaction staff were having with the platform. I was, and am still, a great believer in employees knowing just how their product works, whether that is eBay’s UPI process or the complexities of adding a new address in PayPal.
Over my 7 years there I’m pleased to say that I saw a strong gradual rise in feedback score per head and that was in part to eBay being not only a great venue for buying and selling but also the encouragement I was given to push and prod people towards using the site more. Like you, I’d like it to be more, but wouldn’t we all?
Two little gems to leave you with:
1. I just crossed 1,000 feedback myself, of whioch around 985 was earned when at eBay. I was gutted that I never made it to a 1,000 myself so that I could get a signed certificate from Meg!
2. For a while in the San Jose post room they used to plaster “You can buy this on eBay” stickers on all incoming Amazon branded boxes. I liked that!
TheBrewsNewsOn 07.21.2008 at 11:16 am Said:
@Jamie,
An increase in the average feedback per eBay employee is good news. But are eBay employees’ feedback scores increasing because they are buying more or because they are selling more? I would guess that it is due to buying activity almost exclusively.
How many eBay employees actually sell on eBay? I would think if eBay had some impressive numbers to share that they would already have done so. And every indicator I am aware of points to there being few eBay employee “sellers” who actually sell more than a few items a year. For example, every time I speak with an eBay or Paypal employee on the phone, I ask the question whether they sell on eBay and I can tell you that almost every time the answer is No. Sometimes, though, the person will let me know that they used to sell on eBay a year or two ago.
The changes being made by eBay are being made from the perspective of a “buyer”. eBay has said that their goal is to improve the buyer experience and that is pretty much their only focus this year. Having eBay “buying experience”, whether by buying a few items or many items, still only gives one perspective. It is painfully obvious that the decision-makers and the vast majority of eBay employees on the front lines (ie those who are dealing directly with eBay sellers) have little or no selling experience.
I could be wrong. It would be great if eBay could inform us about some of their employees who successfully sell on eBay and it would be nice to hear how those folks are dealing with the vast number of issues currently facing eBay sellers.
TheBrewsnewsOn 08.07.2008 at 9:10 am Said:
Any progress on getting some real eBay employee “sellers” to communicate with us?
I would really like to know how the employees themselves are handling the myriad of problems facing eBay sellers today, especially since the problems continue to increase at an alarming pace.
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