Is eBay past its prime?
Had various disappointing experiences with eBay user interface today. As a market for everyone, I think the user interface is the business card for eBay. I hadn't had used the service for half a year or so and in the past had no problem with anything selling off surplus household stuff for 1 EUR starting price (toys, electronics, computer parts...).
Today, I tried to sell a DVB-T terrestial digital TV antennna.
As I had my iPhone with me, I thought to sell it right off the cellar shelve, directly on the iPhone. Took a snapshot of the item. Started the eBay App. Walked through the first screens:
- Navigation nightmare: you never know where you are. You are entering data by tapping, but then have to manually go steps back until you are on the main "sales form" screen and then select the next topical item. The web experience is much better and straightforward (well, read my second article for some corrections)
- Photo nightmare: on the webpage I can simply take a photo and upload it. Not so on the iPhone. The app forces me to crop the photo to a square format, cutting off parts of the photo. Had I known this in advance, I would have taken a better composition of the picture. 2:0 for Web Selling
- Shipping costs: the selection of the shipping services was as on the web. However, on the web it let's me select the real price (which I know is 4,30 EURO). In the mobile app it presets to 2,00 EURO with no obvious way around this. And this then was the killer for me. I gave up and booted up the PC.
3:0 for Web Selling. Game over.
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