EBay's Bid to Win Back Buyers |
| News created: 22. september 2007 08:51 |
y Catherine Holahan
Time was, small-business owner Evan Prytherch considered eBay (EBAY) capable of performing e-commerce magic. Prytherch would list his entire music-accessory inventory on the auction Web site and within days it all seemed to disappear. Sold.
But in recent years, much of that magic is gone, Prytherch says. Shoppers are simply not buying all the inventory anymore. Some items languish without a single bidder. Many shoppers opt for other sites including Amazon.com (AMZN), use sophisticated search engines such as Google (GOOG) and Yahoo! (YHOO), or head to store sites directly.
Now eBay is making the biggest effort in its 12-year history to recapture the magic—and bring back the buyers. The company is completely revamping its flagship site, making it easier for shoppers to find and purchase items and discover goods they never knew they had to have. "We are more focused on buyers than we have ever been before," says John Donahoe, president of eBay's Marketplaces, the division that oversees eBay's core shopping business. "What do they really want and need?" eBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman alluded to the changes during a June conference, but company executives outlined specifics in interviews with BusinessWeek this month.
Shopping Logistics
For starters, the site has a new photocentric view that recreates the feel of window shopping, but on the Web. A search for, say, a pair of needle-nose pliers returns a wall of thumbnail-size images of said tool for sale. Scrolling over the photos calls up larger images, complete with brief captions featuring the current price and minutes left in the auction. The new feature is being introduced on a category-by-category basis for existing users and all at once for many new registrants. The aim is for most changes to be available to the majority of users by the yearend shopping seas |
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