The new eBay 4.0 mobile app delivers a more unified look and feel with a redesigned interface that mainly shows three categories: Activity, Shop and Sell.
EBay has launched the new app following the company's split from PayPal in July, which placed an increased pressure on the e-commerce company to increase its sales. The marketplace found itself losing casual shoppers which may have been caused by last year's data breach that compromised a number of passwords. Moreover, sales figures are most likely affected by Google's move to demote eBay listings in search results.
Ebay is hoping that the new app will help change the situation by promising users a more simplified buying and selling experience whenever they are on the site.
"This is the first step on mobile," said David Beach, eBay's director of product management in mobile. "We needed a clean slate to build upon to build new user experiences...and this framework allows us to do that."
Beach added that in the past, eBay was focused more on search. This time around, it focuses on delivering a more immersive way to browse things with a new layout and navigation.
Users will notice on their screen that the three categories that were mentioned earlier (Activity, Shop, and Sell) are featured at the top and look more prominent than the search box, which appears on the top of the page. Each of the three categories also include collections, deals and events.
The Activity tab is where the user can check his recent activities on the site. This include a summary of his recent searches, viewed products and even his selling activity.
The Shop tab carries the same look found on eBay's desktop home screen. This is where users can browse by several categories such as clothing, cars and electronics.
The third tab, Sell, is designed to make it easier for sellers to keep track of their sales on the site. This is where they can list, gain access to a number of selling tips, and perhaps even sell using eBay Valet, where they can get help from an eBay employee in collecting and selling on their behalf for a corresponding fee.
"This design, overall, and this UX framework, is very customizable for us as the developers and will be customizable for users down the road," said Beach. "We can easily add and move content around as our user's needs grows and as our technology grows."
