eBay autos (vehicles and parts) sellers very worried about Finding 2.0

As I've been writing and talking a good bit about Finding 2.0 lately, several eBay sellers have been writing in with their thoughts on the Pros+Cons of the new eBay search system.

I recently noticed a trend of negativity around Finding 2.0 coming from eBay motors sellers (both the vehicle type sellers and parts).  It seems that eBay has been testing many aspects of Finding 2.0 on the Motors side of the house by taking a small population (looks like about 10%) and showing them the 'new ebay motors' that like core previously just lived in the playground.

The new UI didn't have completed search, advanced search options and bunch of other things and the uproar has been loud.

I've heard from several sellers specifically on the vehicle side and fixed-price/store parts side that claim to have seen sharply decreased sales from the new finding system.

If this is something you're interested in you can read this message thread in the motors forum where eBay is actively talking to buyers and some sellers about the new finding experience.

I have to admit that reading all of this and hearing the feedback, I'm getting more worried about the big switch to Finding 2.0 and eBay's ability to execute on it.  I guess the silver lining (sorry about this my eBay motors selling friends) is that motors has been the guinea pig and hopefully that will help eBay work out the significant kinks.

Comments

[permacrisis]

To heck with motors, read this-- it's the official 2.0 thread, and ALL categories are represented:

http://tinyurl.com/35zn7b

Wingo, folks like you, Brian and Adam are in BIIIIG trouble if this goes thru as planned. The ebay seller training/seminar industry will go Poof.

By their own admission, http://tinyurl.com/2sm9x6

ebay is planning to get out of 'small' sales.

I don't know specifically what their definition of a 'small' seller is- but a TON of them are your customers. This threatens to wipe your entire cottage industry right out in one fell swoop. I have watched the infighting and flame wars between you all for some time, meanwhile ebay execs just planned and planned.

You should have fought this tooth and nail, all of you, for the last 12 months, as I have. Welcoming Finding 2.0, and falling for all its features, is like welcoming roaches into your home. It is probably too late now.

[Chad Polk]

Scot -

I can speak only to the Passenger Vehicle space on eBay Motors, but over the last year they have been experimenting with lots of elements of the site.

We've seen new and updated items such as:
- eBay Motors Local Market – dealers list 100% of their inventory and users within 100 miles of their zip code can view them in the search results, etc.
- Search results to default sort by national listings and then Local Market listings
- Search results that intermingled national and Local Market listings sorted by ending time.
- eBayMotors.com 2.0 that included new interface, page content based on your zip code, search results tied to your zip code, additional finding tools, Kelley Blue Book (KBB) integration, more finance offers, vehicle reviews just to name a few. The 2.0 experiment only rolled out to less than 35% of the users in certain regions. The biggest challenge for eBay Motors was to avoid impacting their existing business of national listings. If you flood the site with Local listings and change the search results substantially to display Local Market listings then all of the sudden you have your core national listing customers getting less traffic and less sales (then they leave).
- Addition of new Item Specifics. Obviously this plays into Finding 2.0 strategy.
- Pricing experiments that offered no insertion fees for a few days in December on passenger vehicles.
- They brought back eBay Motors University
- Integration with AutoCheck Vehicle History Reports
- CarAd began supporting Local Market listings recently

This is the classic case of a big company tapping out most of their market and looking for new ways to expand. I commend them for trying new things with slow incremental experiments and have confidence that our leaders at eBay Motors will eventually find a great combination of solutions for auto dealerships.

Chad Polk
AutoRevo

[Joe Imhof]

Well, seems to me all the changes Ebay makes are for the worse. They were a great venue to sell AND buy in 5 years ago, without all the tons of changes they've made in those years. Now, they are less of a presence, less fun, just less - for both buyers and sellers.

Why go and do a Finding 2.0 so that now they can have the same finding experiece as other sites? Part of the fun and uniqueness of Ebay was that they were different. Now they want to be same as Amazon, etc etc? Bad move all around.

And what I dont understand is (Scott?) if they move away from the ending first search, to relevancy, what happens to the auction format? Doesnt this kill auctions, which are another unique and exciting Ebay feature?