eBay Moves Category To Bottom Of Listings, Forcing Endless Scroll Past Ads To See Critical Item Information
eBay is tinkering with the View Item listing page again, this time moving category navigation breadcrumbs to the bottom of the page and forcing users to scroll past hundreds of Promoted Listings ads to see critical item information.
Previously, buyers and sellers alike could quickly and easily tell what subcategory an item was listed in and even navigate to higher category levels using the breadcrumbs shown at the top of the listing.
Those breadcrumbs now no longer appear at the top, making more room "above the fold" for eBay Promoted Stores ads.
Users who still wish to view the category breadcrumb information will now have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page, past 300+ Sponsored Promoted Listings ads which automatically add even more rows of ads as you continue to scroll down the page.
Sellers are expressing their frustration with the change in the eBay community forum.
Grrrrrr
Notice something missing? no category path, no search suggestions....... the shop category is to a huge, general page...
I used that category path ALOT for listing......as well as the search suggestions for titles. Hopefully it's a glitch only to me........but does anyone else see the same thing?
One observant seller chimed in to advise the breadcrumbs weren't missing, they had just been moved -tagging eBay staff to alert them to the very valid reasons why buyers, sellers, and those just trying to efficiently answer questions in the community need easy access to this crucial information and reminding sellers they can leave their feedback about the change for eBay by clicking on the question mark in the lower right corner of their screen.
It's been moved to the bottom of the page. The problem with that is the nearly infinite scroll as more and more and more and more and more ... sponsored ads appear before you finally get to that buried info at the bottom.
We've been around on this numerous times kyle@ebay . Please let the buying team know the category breadcrumbs are pretty important! As buyers we use them for browsing/shopping. As sellers we use them for research. As Community volunteers we use them for answering questions about things like why the listing was not eligible for eBay Standard Envelope or why the fee was x% instead of y%, etc.
To anybody else frustrated by this, click the ? icon on the lower right of the page and use the submit feedback link.
Those hoping this might be a glitch may be in for a rude awakening as it appears to be part of now two year redesign of the View Item Page.
The original announcement back in March 2023 laid out a list of "key highlights" that users could expect from the new design and created a private, invite only section of the eBay community for select buyers to provide feedback as eBay tested the new experience.
Importantly, eBay told sellers that in the new design, item specifics and seller provided descriptions would be brought above any ads on the page.
Liz Morton
The item listing (also known as View Item) page on desktop will be going through a redesign this year. As part of this effort, we are going to simplify and modernize the user experience. To help be apart of this process please check out the new community board!
Here are some of the key highlights of what you can expect:Larger imagesIncreased prominence of the seller information.Bring critical information like Item specifics and seller description higher up on the page before any modules that show other items & ads.Improve the hierarchy of the page, so we show the most important information in the right order.
Competitor ads displayed above descriptions has been a major complaint for years, so sellers were elated at the promise to "bring critical information like Item specifics and seller description higher up on the page before any modules that show other items & ads."
However, as the first iterations of the test started to show publicly, it became clear eBay had no intention of honoring that promise.
Liz Morton
Sellers pushed back about the unfulfilled promise and eventually, eBay renewed their commitment to move the seller description above ads in this community post from buyer_team@eBay on June 13, 2023.
Unfortunately, seller hopes were dashed again in December 2023 when eBay declared phase one of the design overhaul complete - and there were still competitor ads being shown above item specifics and descriptions.
Liz Morton
In one mockup of what eBay had planned for phase two, they showed the description would be brought higher up to a small box the right column that could be clicked on to open the full description in a separate module.
This would make the desktop display much more like how items are shown in the mobile app and appeared to be eBay's solution to be able to say they were technically fulfilling their promise to bring the description above the ads - though making buyers have to click to "see more" is not what sellers had in mind.
It's been over a year since that phase one completion and we have yet to see most of what eBay promised for phase two, but I didn't notice at the time their mock ups also no longer showed the category breadcrumbs at the top.
That could indicate this is in fact an intentional change rather than a glitch - and if so, it's even more important that sellers should make their opinions about the change known using the question mark to send feedback directly to eBay.
What do you think of category information being moved to the bottom of the page, forcing users to scroll past hundreds of ads? Let us know in the comments below!
