eBay Stores Enhancements: Category Expansion and Custom Listing Frame

[amy]

***eBay Stores Enhancements: Category Expansion and Custom Listing Frame*** 

March 06, 2006 | 02:13PM PST/PT

Hi everyone, I'm Ryan Dieckmann, Manager of eBay Stores, and I want to provide you with an update to two exciting developments for eBay Stores.

Up to 300 Custom Stores Categories
In Bill Cobb's letter in January, he mentioned that this year we would be expanding our Stores category navigation to enable sellers to create up to 300 custom categories with up to three levels of categories and sub-categories. We're planning to make this available within the next few weeks.

As an eBay Store owner, how you set up your categories is totally up to you. For example, you could use your 300 categories to create all top-level categories, or you could create two or three levels of categories (e.g. 30 top-level categories with 5 subcategories each). This category expansion will allow you to create an extensive category structure that is tailored tfor the items you sell and how buyers browse for your products.

New Custom Listing Frame That Highlights Your Category Structure
Currently, the Custom Listing Header gives Stores sellers the ability to automatically display a special version of their eBay Store header at the top of all their item descriptions. Very soon, Store sellers will also be able to include most of their Store category navigation (essentially, the links on the left-hand side of your Store) as well.

The combined options for displaying your Store header and category navigation in item descriptions will be called the Custom Listing Frame. Sellers will be able to "frame" their listing description with content and branding from their Store. The Custom Listing Frame will be a simple, effective way for sellers to help buyers discover the full range of items available.

Sellers will be able to add this new navigation to their existing Custom Listing Header display in just a few clicks through Manage My Store.

We're excited about these new features, and we hope you are, too. I'll be back with more information as we get closer to launch.

[iron_chick]

Wonder how many glitches these enhancements will cause?

[amy]

Both of these are available now.  If your listing template is wider than 560 pixels your buyers  will have to scroll from side to side if you use the custom listing frame.

Reason #1 that I prefer Amazon to eBay: you don't need to waste time every month revising templates

[xppman]

Maybe that should be included in their next BIG ad campaign flop.

eBay... Come waste some time with us.

[xppman]

Hey I already got the jingle for it too:

Sitting on the clock with eBay... Gonna waste some more time today... hey hey hey.


Sitting on the clock with eBay.... Wasting time ooooooooooyea.

(And I haven't even started drinking yet to day).

[bargainbloodhound]

One view of eBay enhancements:

Oooh we really needed this feature! Thank you eBay! Thank you Storesteam! I love the new categories! I love the stores promotion boxes! I love accent colors!  Thank you Storesteam! eBay has soooo many more features than it used to have years ago!  Thank you eBay.

My view of eBay enhancements:

Sell through rates and average selling prices in most categories on eBay have been in a steady decline for the past 4-5 years so all of those enhancements and new features don't mean shit   as far as actually increasing the bottom line of the average eBay seller...they're just pretty eye candy.

Sellers who were able to list 100 items monthly to get $1000 in sales 5 years ago now have to list 2-3-4-500 items to achieve the same sales.  Bidding wars, and multiple bids on items were a daily event for most sellers 5 years ago despite the lack of site features (and the lack of custom designed eBay Storefronts and templates).  5 years, and hundreds of enhancements  later, bidding wars and multiple bids on items are rare in many categories.

Based on declining site sell through rates and falling average selling prices (and the accompanying shrinking margins of many sellers on eBay), it doesn't seem like eBay's enhancements over the years have done anything other than give sellers a few new toys to play with (and forced buyers to relearn the site every time they want to make a purchase)...the enhancements sure haven't led to rising profit margins for the average seller-just ask Sell2All, GlacierBayDvd, or countless other once high flying eBay (former) millionaires . 

Short version of this post: Another enhancement. Thpppttt! 

[accentnepal]

If I had a zillion items then 300 catagories would help...

The one thing that is needed: (refrain) More buyers.

!!! idea!!! why not make the site load quickly?

!!! idea!!! why not crack down on sellers with .99 cent items and $35. "postage", the number one cause of neg feedback, it seems.

[bargainbloodhound]

[quote author=accentnepal link=topic=2925.msg11082#msg11082 date=1142693398]

!!! idea!!! why not make the site load quickly?

[/quote]

Did someone mention slow loading pages? 

Download speeds for the same item on our web site and on eBay:

eBay:

Download Times*
Connection Rate  Download Time
14.4K    153.59 seconds
28.8K    76.80 seconds
33.6K    65.82 seconds
56K    39.49 seconds
ISDN 128K    12.10 seconds
T1 1.44Mbps    1.05 seconds

Web site:

Download Times*
Connection Rate  Download Time
14.4K    37.69 seconds
28.8K    19.05 seconds
33.6K    16.38 seconds
56K    9.99 seconds
ISDN 128K    3.34 seconds
T1 1.44Mbps    0.65 seconds

Did eBay's focus group of buyers using dial-up tell eBay they preferred to wait 39-65 seconds for a listing page to load?

[mandy]

Auctionbyteme article:

eBay Rolls out Custom Categories for Stores

If you operate an eBay Store, you know that Store categories are like the aisles, or departments in a bricks and mortar retail establishment. If you sell shoes on eBay, one category might be "men's," another "children's," another "women's," and so on. Until this week eBay limited us to creating 20 custom Store categories - 19, actually since we were forced to use the last category as "Other." That all just changed. Rumored during eBay Live 2005, the new 300 Category/Subcategory feature went live Thursday night, March 16, 2006. Here's a first look:...

full article: http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y206/m03/abu0163/s02

[xppman]

Ditto to BBH's reply #5.