eBay CEO Devin Wenig acknowledged that the revamp of its mobile app last year caused some user dissatisfaction (it was panned by users), but as promised, eBay released updates to its mobile apps on Monday.
Wenig told Wall Street analysts last week that it had seen some disruption last fall as it re-platformed its mobile experience so that it would not have multiple groups developing for multiple mobile operating systems. “We’re now on a common platform where we can speed up and scale,” he said.
However, he said there were some UI changes and “a bit of speed decline in the app itself.”
He warned that the new release was not going to solve all the problems at once, however.
In Monday’s announcement, eBay said users could download the free update to eBay’s core Android app, with the iOS app to follow. Users will notice three key updates – Navigation, Utility and Design. In a section titled, “Updated Apps Make it Easier for Users to Find Exactly What They’re Looking for on our Marketplace,” eBay explained:
“These updates restore some of the favorite features from previous apps, as requested by users over the past months. These foundational changes will be the first of many, as eBay adopts a more frequent cadence of app updates throughout 2016.”
To show how important mobile is to eBay – Chief Financial Officer Scott Schenkel told analysts last week that total eBay mobile volume was 44%, and said the percent of GMV touched by mobile was 55%.
You can find details of the new release on the eBay corporate blog. It will be interesting to see if users welcome the changes – they make their opinions known loud and clear on app store reviews.
