Chuck Pletcher has unveiled a new mobile app for eBay Classifieds over on the eBay Classifieds blog…

The app was built to have a similar feature set to our main iPhone app:

* Auto-locate directs you to your closest eBay Classifieds area
* Browse and search any category by keyword, price or any attribute
* View, reply to, or forward ads
* View ad location on Google Maps
* View all ad images on a single page
* Keep tabs on ads with our handy Watch List
* Super-easy ad posting with up to eight images from your camera or photo library
* Facebook and Twitter sharing

For you iPhone users out there, don’t fret, there’s a whole eBay Classifieds mobile page dedicated to you too, complete with two apps to download.

Cheers,
RBH

The eBay Classifieds Pets iPhone app has recently been modified to ensure the best user experience. Version 1.0.1 includes the following:

* Retina display optimization throughout the app
* Recommend app to a friend via email, Facebook, and Twitter
* Minor bug fixes

The eBay Classifieds iPhone app had a more extensive update. The latest version, 1.1.0, was made available a couple weeks ago and includes the following:

* Full Retina display optimization
* Browse “Free Stuff” category and sub-categories from home screen
* Distance search
* Speed improvements throughout app
* Get directions to ads from View Ad on Map screen
* Responsible Pet Ownership & Re-homing tips button on all pets ads and in About Us
* More prominent “Find Closest Area” button for setting your location
* New ebayc.us short URLs for Twitter sharing
* Minor bug fixes

For more information coming out of the eBay Classifieds group, be sure to check out and subscribe to their blog: http://blog.ebayclassifieds.com/. You can also follow them on Twitter: @eBayClassifieds.

Cheers,
RBH

An interesting post over on Hitwise Intelligence by Heather Dougherty earlier this month profiles how this Summer’s heat wave in the US has driven online sales of air conditioners. What I found most interesting was the eBay-focused data…

eBay experienced increases in the Air Conditioner category during the same week ending July 10, 2010 with a 46% increase in the volume of searches for ‘air conditioner’, ‘window air conditioner’ and ‘portable air conditioner’.

Going one step-further, we thought it would be compelling to see if similar trends were occurring on our other sites such as eBay Classifieds and Shopping.com. Sure enough, the trends are fairly consistent across the board. Digging even deeper, you can see that searches for air conditioners on eBay Classifieds peaked a week earlier than they did on eBay or Shopping. One could obviously attribute this to people wanting to shop locally before going onto eBay or other sites.

Searches for Air Conditioners – eBay Classifieds

Searches for Air Conditioners – Shopping.com

Searches for Air Conditioners – eBay.com

Not only that, the higher levels of search activity seem to follow higher levels of listings. Leading one to conclude that once again, online sellers are playing Nostradamus to consumer demand…

“[An] interesting trend is the ability of the eBay sellers to predict demand in terms of their inventory – in this case, the number of listings was the highest the week ending July 3, 2010, right before the peak, with a small decrease in the subsequent weeks of 2.3%* and 3.6%*. Watching the listings of eBay sellers could offer some predictive insight into the popularity of certain categories and products– like last year’s holiday hit, Zhu Zhu Pets.”

Cheers,
RBH

As usual, there will be prizes given away during the chat. Tonight they’ll be giving away three Money Mama piggy banks – aimed at helping folks get started on teaching kids about finances.

Lori will be tweeting from her own account, @LoriMackey, along with @eBayClassifieds. You can join in the conversation too by using the hashtag #eBCchat. You can also visit the eBay Classifieds Twitter Chat site to find out more information.

Cheers!
RBH

It has been 3 years since eBay Classifieds launched in the U.S. and to mark the occasion they’ve launched their own blog. Good stuff! Here are some fun stats listed from today’s blog entry…

• Three years ago we had just a couple hundred thousand visitors. Today we have over 5 million. What a birthday party!

• We started out with just a few thousand ads back in 2007, now we have nearly 1 million. Keep them coming!

• Did you know that the frilled shark has a gestation period of 3.5 years? It’s been three years for eBay Classifieds and we’re already generating over 50 million page views a month. Take that, frilled shark!

They’re just getting started with the blog so please add them to your subscriptions. The blog can be found at http://blog.ebayclassifieds.com/.

Also, if you’re not following them already, you should add @eBayClassifieds to your Twitter feed.

Cheers!
RBH

Granted, I maybe a little punchy given the duration of the last couple of days, but I decided to just turn on my Flipcam a little more at the office and get some behind-the-scenes footage with folks I work with.

I wanted to video the eBay Classifieds team as they got together for a group picture outside of our main building at San Jose HQ… I turned the video on a little early though.

Enjoy!

Cheers,
RBH

Had to share this quick vid with folks. Nice use of a local legend here in Campbell, CA. I’ve been wanting to use this guy to promote Ink for a while now… the eBay Classifieds team beat me to it. Classic!

Cheers,
RBH