eBay hopes new browsing will deliver better online shopping
eBay has unveiled new browsing modules and approaches to surfacing relevant items that go beyond traditional keyword search results, in hope of delivering better online shopping.
The new modules take advantage of structured data that is now foundational on the eBay platform, allowing instant surface listings with savings, selling products, and more, and present them in “easy-to-navigate ways”.
Dominique Bouchon, eBay’s Director of Search Front-End Product Management explains that the “new browsing modules provide users with extra levels of guidance and more flexibility in surfacing the most relevant items for them.”
Bouchon further explains “the modules expose ‘shop by brand’ options, great savings, and best selling products, all by leveraging our structured data. Structured data is the key to unlocking this new experience, as it allows our platform to reveal patterns in buying and selling.”
eBay says the new modules help shoppers who navigate our site and category pages without using keyword searches, adding that “many users want to click to browse through items that they are interested in rather than rely on keyword searches.”
According to Bouchon, “if we only surface a long list of listings, we miss the opportunity to surface the most interesting products and listings. We now have an algorithm that can instantly and intelligently surface them to our users.”
Bouchon explains that “another goal of the new modules is to better serve potential customers landing on eBay directly from Google,” and added that “sometimes people who arrive on eBay pages from Google don’t have much context and need some guidance to make sense of the unique eBay inventory. With our new approaches, we can instantly engage them with items and value propositions that they will find relevant.”
