Shopping online offers a lot of advantages over shopping in bricks-and-mortar stores. There’s the convenience of just tapping a few buttons and having a box delivered to your door, for starters. And there’s also a much larger range of products to choose from.
However, having more things to choose from isn’t always a good thing. Where do you start? How do you zero in on what you actually want to buy in that moment? Eager to help you buy more things, eBay has a solution, and it involves you revealing your “Interests”.
eBay Is Interested In You
eBay Interests is a new feature designed to help match you with the items you’ll actually want to buy. In a nutshell, you tell eBay what sort of things you’re into, and eBay will create a store unique to you, filled with items you’re going to want to buy.
The only thing you have to do is answer a short survey about your hobbies, your passions in life, and your style. eBay will then use this information, along with your purchase history, to create a storefront unique to you and your interests.
There’s a new way to shop for everything you love, all in one place. Today, @eBay introduces Interests— a new feature that curates millions of items from our global marketplace, exclusively for you: https://t.co/90Sburkgil pic.twitter.com/C44HD2oDbI
— eBay Newsroom (@eBayNewsroom) May 17, 2018
Your homepage will be transformed from a huge repository of random items into a storefront filled with items designed to appeal directly to you. This should, therefore, prevent you from having to wade through countless menus before you can start shopping.
Bradford Shellhammer of eBay said, “Our shopping experience should be as individual as each shopper on eBay. By asking people to tell us a little bit about their interests, we’re delivering a personalized store built around the things you care about most”.
Interests is available in the eBay app on Android and on iOS right now, with eBay promising to roll it out to more platforms and other markets around the world in the coming months.
A Line of Innovations
This is an interesting move by eBay. In many ways it borrows from streaming services, which recommend content based on your previous viewing/listening habits. eBay is using the same kind of approach to help draw your attention to potential purchases.
This is the latest in a line of innovations from eBay. In June 2017, eBay offered a price-match guarantee. In October 2017, eBay launched visual search tools. In March, eBay launched an Under $ 10 section. And in April, eBay simplified its listing process.
