Alas, due to contractual obligations I am still a BlackBerry user, so I’ve never been especially attracted to using apps on my phone because of the small screen and not-so-great user interface compared to Apple’s iPhone. Luckily when BlackBerry was still a fairly popular type of smartphone and other regular cell phones started coming out with a mobile Internet feature, many companies developed mobile microsites of their main website to make themselves accessible to customers on-the-go. eBay is one of those companies, and their microsite optimized for mobile devices makes it easy for customers to take their selling and bidding on the go, as if they were using the full-featured website.
To use the microsite, all one has to do is type in “www.ebay.com” into their address bar on the mobile browser. From there, this screen appears (please ignore the watermarks from the third-party app I had to use to take the screenshots since it’s not built into BB’s interface – can you tell I can ‘t wait to upgrade? J ):
From the homepage, users can search for specific items through the search bar, browse categories of items offered on the site, or scroll to the bottom to manage their personal eBay account.
Let's pretend I was searching for some jewelry through eBay on my phone. If I click the jewelry tab, it lists a broad range of jewelry categories from which to choose:
I’m feeling a bit extravagant today, so I chose to search for designer jewelry to wear as a good luck charm for when I’m taking tests. A page appears listing all of the major designer jewelry brands available on the site.
I picked Chanel this time because lately I've been picking Dior and Louis Vuitton and I felt bad I hadn’t bought anything from Coco recently. A list of all of the Chanel products came up for me to peruse to my liking:
These earrings I found just exude the timeless Chanel look, therefore I had to review the listing:
As I scrolled down the page, the browser provided a summary of key information about the listing:
The earrings will be the perfect companion to my Marketing on the Internet exam this Monday. I must buy them:
As I scrolled down the page to commit to buying them, suddenly I realized I already have eighteen pairs of similar earrings. I figured I could probably find something else to suit my fancy. I decided I should check my account summary to see if I had anything else I’d bookmarked to buy at a later date, or if I’d heard any new information about the items I have up for sale.
Before I knew it, I was browsing iPhones in preparation of my June 18 upgrade date. I found this one, which (if I wanted) let me just make a bid on the phone, instead of outright buying it.
I think I’ll try to hold out for the iPhone 5.
eBay’s microsite is a great idea to cater to their fiercest buyers and sellers, in addition to serving to other shoppers in a time crunch. I think the main types of people using the microsite would be their current users who are desperate to watch auctions when they can’t be at computer, still being able to utilize a common bidding strategy that they employ to get the items they want. Under this strategy, the bidder rarely (if at all) bids on the item prior to just before the listing expires. This is because it may give the bidder the chance to be the last person to get their bid in so they win the item, and may also lower the final cost of the item, because there is hardly any downtime for other bidders to raise the price through their counterbids (which could very easily happen if someone bids their maximum bid with days to spare before the auction closes). The times when auctions end on eBay are generally completely random, so it can be hard for these buyers to plan their whole day around one auction ending online. The microsite gives them the ability to be places like the doctor’s office or the aquarium, yet still be able to win the item that they want because they can use their phone to get their last bid in. This goes likewise for sellers, who may be anticipating the close of one of their auctions and want to know once it ends how much money they’ve made. The microsite gives them the convenience to stay connected wherever they have cell phone service, I’m sure alleviating many from anxiety about not being able to check their eBay auctions.
The site can also be useful for people who realize they need something on-the-go and are in a time crunch to get it. The site can help those who are on a plane or train going home for the holidays to find presents for loved ones that they hadn’t had time to buy. Once they decide what they want to buy, they can just input the address of the person they want the gift delivered to and pay for it online. This will help them save face when everyone else is opening presents, because they can just show the gift recipient what will be coming in the mail for them.
Overall, the mobile site is very effective as a mini-version of their main site. It takes elements of the full site (i.e. the list of categories) and breaks them down so that it is easy for cell phone browsers to load, cutting time and data. Even with the smaller site screen and layout, I noticed eBay was still able to load one of its own ads for users to see and maybe display something that they could be interested in.
I find the site quite useful, but the only thing that I think may come up as a problem is that the information for the listings is limited to general, categorical information about the item(s). The mobile site doesn’t show the seller’s individual comments about an item, for example if there was a scratch or a hole; something specific about the item that may influence potential buyers to purchase or not to. People who may be browsing and purchasing solely from their phone may be disappointed if they found out something they’d bought had a scratch on it that they didn’t know about beforehand. I think to minimize those types of problems, it is best to do what I did when actually used the site to buy my computer at the beginning of the school year, by picking out the one I wanted beforehand and then just using the site to place a last-minute bid since I couldn’t be at a computer when the auction ended. With this method, I was able to time my break at work so that I could be on my phone right before the auction ended so I could get my final bid in and win the item before anyone could retaliate. Needless to say, I returned from my break a happy camper.
eBay has brought functionality and convenience on-the-go for its auction-obsessed fans. While I don’t use the site often enough to care about looking into a mobile app for the BlackBerry platform, it serves me as a holdover if I want to buy something online until my magical June 18 upgrade date.
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