eBay Testing New Search Results Interface

[mandy]

eBay is tweaking the way it displays search results in what is likely part of a test to help it improve the buying experience on its US marketplace. Wall Street analyst Bob Peck of Bear Stearns described the new interface in a research report published Monday. He noted that a search for "kingdom hearts ps2" brings back descriptive choices of products the eBay system thinks are best matches - in this case Kingdom Hearts (Playstation 2) and Kingdom Hearts II (Playstation 2). Once a consumer makes a choice by clicking on either game title, a page comes up with a description of the product and five listings that are ending soon, and - as Peck points out - not necessarily ending soonest, as is the default sort on search results...

One PowerSeller had theorized a few months ago that eBay was going to be tweaking the search results pages so that listings from top PowerSellers who violated eBay's multiple-listing policy would no longer dominate search results. In this case, the five listings for each of these two PlayStation gaming products were from five different sellers. But the logic used to pull those five to the top is not clear, and sellers might well object if they get less favorable exposure as a result...

full article: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y07/m05/i22/s01