Updates to the Bid History Page

One of the things I’ve always loved about eBay is that it is one of the few companies I’ve worked for who actively solicits feedback from its members and responds as quickly as possible to constructive criticism.

Many of you have sent both praises and critiques to us via sneakpeek@ebay.com. Of course, we also continue to monitor the discussion boards and solicit feedback through our Voices program. Just as you probably know from your own business experience, we can respond to some things quickly, and some programs can take longer to implement.

Today I thought I’d pop onto this blog to let you know about two of the changes you’ve requested, which you’ll see in the next couple weeks.

As Evan shared, the Bid History page is becoming more informative and functional. We made a change several months ago and showed user IDs as “Bidder 1,” “Bidder 2,” and so on, for members bidding on items that are over $200. This was an important safety measure designed to confound professional fraudsters. We are now going to mask the IDs in a way that still can thwart the bad guys, but I think you’ll agree that it’s much more useful to members trying to determine a bit about their bidding competition. You’ll soon see IDs displayed as a label derived from two random characters from the ID: for example, a**b. That label will remain consistent across all auctions over $200 for which a particular bidder places a bid. You can read more about that here, and make sure to check out Evan's video at the end of this post!

In addition to this helpful transparency on Bid History, you’ll also be able to bid directly from that page. No longer will you have to go back to the View Item (description) page after checking out the current bid history. Instead, just place a bid right there!

Likewise, we’ve heard your comments about the Search testing we are running in Playground. We are developing it in phases so that we can test particular things first. You’ve told us, though, that Completed Items search is very important to you, so we’ll be adding that very soon.

Please keep your feedback coming. We never make changes or add new features without a reason that’s grounded in the needs of our Community. So when we do make changes, we love to hear from you so that we can make refinements if necessary. Your voice counts!

Enjoy your weekend!

Renee