Olivia Wang
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eBay Australia
Improving Trust
eBay Australia is an online shopping app that improves trust between customers and individual sellers by providing clear information about sellers.
Timeline:
Febuary 2021 (17 days)
My Responsibilities:
User Research
UI Design
Usability Testing
Introduction
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To Prince Hamlet,
“To be, or not to be” is a question.
To eBay online shoppers,
“To buy, or not to buy” is a question.
After a series of user research, I found out that people’s biggest concern with eBay is that they don’t trust eBay individual sellers. However, one of eBay’s main business models is C2C, and eBay was a pioneer through the C2C online marketplace, which means the trust issue is seriously hurting eBay’s business. So, in order to increases eBay’s competitiveness and solve the trust problem between individual sellers and buyers, I redesigned the eBay app.
A pioneer yesterday, falling behind today
In terms of global marketplace website visits in 2020, eBay is second to Amazon, with under 3.5% of the market share, which is less than half of that of Amazon.
People only go to eBay for cheap or niche items
To find out the reasons behind this, I conducted 15 interviews and 46 surveys, then I synthesized our research results.
According to our research, people purchase on Amazon mainly because of their product range, fast delivery and product reviews. When it comes to eBay, the main reasons are good deals and the availability of niche items that can’t be found elsewhere.
People don’t trust eBay individual sellers
When asked why they hadn’t shopped on eBay, people mainly reported not trusting individual sellers as the reason.
Finding a trusted seller on eBay is overwhelming
Our research found two main types of eBay users. One is the frequent Amazon shopper who shops at eBay as a last resort, and the other is the budget shopper. To find out their pain points, I looked at their journeys on the current eBay.
Hard to find reliable sellers
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Adam, the frequent Amazon shopper, finds it hard to identify reliable eBay sellers.
Lack of seller history & reputation
Jessica can’t make accurate judgements of eBay sellers.
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People trust seller ratings, reviews and total items sold
However, people cannot see seller ratings, reviews and total items sold on current eBay
This led to my MVP:
For online shoppers, who have trust issues, the eBay redesign is an e-commerce platform that builds trust between buyers and sellers. Unlike the current eBay, the product provides clear information about sellers.
According to current eBay and the research findings, I designed the wireframe via Figma.
I tested it with five users, made some changes on the search page and the product page, then completed the final version
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Iteration of the search page
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Wireframe & Iteration: Make seller ratings and reviews obvious and predominant
Iteration of the product page
Prototyping & Usability Testing
The video below shows how it works.
I tested the final design with six users. The usability test scenario is to buy a lego technic plane from a trusted seller on the redesigned eBay.
Then I asked them:
“Could you find seller ratings and reviews easily?”
"How did you feel about the seller page?
“Did you trust the seller you just chose?”
All six people said that now they could choose sellers whom they trust and purchase products from them with confidence.
Further improving trust in the future
Suggest eBay check all individual sellers’ ID.
Because after uploading their ID on eBay, sellers will consider more about their reputation, then provide high-quality products.
Individual sellers to set their profile photos.
The seller page will show whether the photo is the seller himself. Because a real profile photo shows the seller’s sincerity which will increase trust effectively.
What I learnt
Distrust is a big issue in the C2C business model.
If users don’t trust the specific individual seller, they will switch to another seller. If users don’t trust all the individual sellers on a certain platform, they will switch to another platform.
Building trust has a long way to go.
It is easy to add seller ratings, reviews and show how many products have been sold. Confirming all this data is true is a challenge to all online shopping platforms. Online shopping platforms should improve their authentication policy and strengthen the third-party supervision mechanism.