I’ve been with eBay for 11 years. It’s fun to watch them grow up. Today, I dove in and played with any new and upcoming toys and features eBay made available and read up on the rest with anticipation. Here’s some things for you to look forward to.

The eBay blog widget : eBay ToGo
This is probably one of the best things coming out of eBay’s hard work lately, and as you can see below, it’s ready for everyone to use. 2007 seems to be the Year of the Widget, and nobody’s going to keep eBay out of the party. It’s a smart move for eBay and it looks pretty clean. I only wish I could have a bit more control over it, but that’s just how I am.

At the time of this writing, the widget will display auction details for a portable DVD player, but you can specify any item you like, of course, or try multiple items or a search term. When a single item display is selected, you are asked for a search term that will be used when the listing for your chosen item has ended. Most importantly, widget creation takes about 30 seconds if you have the item id handy. Did the eBay marketing team plan this out well or what?

eBay’s new Countdown feature
At first glimpse, I thought, “Wow. That looks pretty, but what will it do to improve my shopping experience?”. After playing with it a little, I found it to be a little handy.

I think the idea here is to save you from having to refresh that item details page 100 times in the last five minutes of an auction. It should save them a ton of server load, too, which is good for everyone. Here’s the breakdown:

- One-click bidding for when you want to place the minimum bid (see example below).
- Time remaining and high bid stand out in bright green.
- Top 3 bidders are shown.
- Bidder details are displayed when you roll your mouse cursor over a bidder.
- Weird (but fun) little bidder character depictions.

The new shopping experience
I’ve never really had too many complaints about the checkout experience on eBay other than a few occasional inconveniences. Still, everything is supposed to be faster online, so eBay has been hard at work on streamlining the checkout experience, too. They’ve pulled out a lot of the unnecessary steps and left us with just three:

1. Review your purchase
2. Pick your payment method
3. Confirm your payment

eBay Neighborhoods
Hey. Why not get in on the social craze. It’s good to meet new people and possible customers. It’s better to build a network of people you’ve learned you can trust during an online transaction. Here’s how eBay describes their Neighborhoods:

They are ideal micro-communities: groups of people centered around a shared passion for particular products or activities.

I guess, then, if you collect sports cards, you can connect with others who do, as well. I’m not sure how well this will work with the eBay mindset, but it will be interesting to see.

Search listing changes
The item lists are changing, too. The images below really tell the whole story.

Item detail previews:

Item seller previews:

This should be very handy when it comes to avoiding sellers with poor ratings.

Window shopping at home
Now you don’t even have to leave the house to window shop. I think this has been a long time in the making and I think it’s the right time for it, too.

Just mouse over a thumbnail view to get some detail.

The next year should be a great one for eBay. I’m already playing with the stuff they’ve launched and I can’t wait for the rest.

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