With 'Interests', eBay Personalizes Its Market With Things Shoppers Want To See

eBay was born as an auction site. Despite numerous and quiet efforts, that old reputation seems to stick wherever it goes. People still think eBay as a marketplace for used goods.

People know eBay as a place where they can buy collectibles, antiques, hard-to-find goods and so forth. eBay to those people, has never been an online store which connects buyers and sellers worldwide. Why? Because browsing its marketplaces involve scouting through whole categories and hoping to find the things they're looking for.

eBay wants to change that by evolving its platform.

It does this by launching an 'Interests' feature which creates a customized store based on the tastes users pick through a questionnaire.

eBay

The strategy here is to walk consumers through a series of customization on its mobile app, where they can manually tap on the things they're interested in.

eBay then uses those selections to curate a list of items that will be organized into groups on the users' homepage. Using its own shopping data, eBay said that it has created hundreds of shopping themes like streetwear and sports teams to choose from.

"When it comes to personalization at scale, most retailers merchandise the items that they are trying to sell," said an eBay spokesperson. "As an agnostic platform, eBay Interests helps sort through the 1 billion items available from sellers on eBay to find the items that are most relevant and interesting to you."

"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."

Initially, eBay Interests is available for users on Android and iOS in the U.S..

Published: 
18/05/2018