Hoping to woo shoppers who say eBay Inc has lost its folksy appeal, the world's largest online auction plans to launch its own version of a social networking service yesterday and is promising other customer-friendly features by year's end.
The "Neighborhoods" feature encourages users to post their photos, product reviews, tips and responses -- creating a far more visual and interactive experience than eBay's text-based discussion forums.
The move is one result of a broad reorganization strategy started late last year, when the San Jose, California-based e-commerce leader's scorching growth rate began to slow.
Individuals listed 480 million items on eBay in the second quarter, down 6 percent from the first quarter and down 2 percent from a year earlier. The number of listings by "power sellers" who operated eBay stores was 79.1 million -- unchanged from the previous quarter but down 25 percent from a year earlier.
Many users complain that the site's size -- it listed 559.1 million items worth US$14.46 billion in the second quarter -- can make it tough to find and purchase a specific product quickly. Users are turning to rivals such as Seattle-based Amazon.com, Salt Lake City, Utah-based Overstock.com Inc and Chicago-based uBid Inc.
"We knew we had to change things internally because we could not innovate with the effectiveness or speed we needed," spokesman Hani Durzy said on Tuesday.
Marketplaces president John Donahoe spearheaded a "philosophical shift" this year in which engineers, product managers, quality assurance representatives as well as other employees were regrouped from traditional function-based "silos" into two teams -- a buyer experience team and a seller experience team.
Neighborhoods -- which aggregates postings from eBay blogs, guides and reviews -- was the brainchild of an "engagement" subgroup of the buyer-experience team.
Among the 600 new neighborhoods is "Shoe Heads," intended as a haven for footwear fashionistas. Others range from Beyonce to Battlestar Galactica, and still more will be formed based on popularity of search terms and community feedback.
"People who are passionate about certain brands, trends, celebrities or products have been discovering and trading with one another for years," said Jamie Iannone, an eBay vice president in charge of buyer experience. "Neighborhoods makes this even easier."
Later this year eBay will roll out "One Click Bid," which should boost a buyer's chances of winning during the final 15 minutes. EBay also plans to streamline its "My eBay" service and speed its cumbersome checkout process.
And it is beta testing features called "Snapshot View," the e-commerce equivalent of window shopping; "Best Match," an automatic sorting option; and "Countdown," which features improvements in auction monitoring.
Building a sense of community should keep users at eBay longer, experts said on Tuesday.
EBay building neighborhoods is the equivalent of Nordstrom or another brick-and-mortar retailer adding a cafe and lounge.
"The idea is this will provide more 'stickiness' so a user will come back more often, spend more time there and will more likely purchase items," said Karsten Weide of research firm IDC.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
RSS