eBay revamping its auction-listing form
Tired of the company's unwieldy listing forms? eBay hopes to take some of the pain out of posting an auction with its latest update.
In past updates, eBay has added features and services such as page counters and picture hosting. But the complexity of eBay's current form has made listing more than one item at a time a laborious process.
The company is beta testing the new form, with plans to launch it next week on its U.S. site and next month on its international sites.
"If you have been a seller on eBay for a while, you have noticed the Sell Your Item form become longer as we have introduced new features to the site," eBay said in a note. "We have heard from users about the complexity and long download times...Based on your input, we will make enhancements."
After one update to the form last summer, sellers reported problems with listing items on the site. And because of the unwieldiness of the form, many large-scale sellers have turned to auction listing tools such as those provided by Andale, AuctionWatch.com and ChannelAdvisor, as well as to eBay's own Seller's Assistant.
As part of its update, eBay plans to break its listing form into multiple pages. The company will save people's information after each step. One of the complaints about the current form is that sellers who hit the back button often have to completely fill in their information again.
eBay will also allow sellers to customize the new form so they can remove options they don't use. The company also plans to personalize the form so that it will only offer options to a particular seller based on that seller's PowerSeller status or category.