
Monday's Newsflash newsletter discusses eBay's attempts to build out its Product Review feature. eBay has had product reviews since 2010 (it had "Reviews and Guides" going back much further).
But despite the fact that eBay is actively soliciting buyers to leave reviews for products they purchase, it's nearly impossible to find them.
Let's take one example: a popular cookbook called "The Silver Palate Cookbook." A search for this book on eBay reveals 163 results, including the 25th Anniversary Edition. There is an unassuming "Products & Reviews" (beta) tab, which, if you click on, brings you to some 26 reviews for various versions of this cookbook. What is nice about this presentation, to eBay's credit, is they have all the different editions and versions of the book clearly delineated. Sometimes all the different (and sometimes duplicate) versions of books on Amazon can look quite schizophrenic.
But when we searched today, June 7, 2015, we couldn't find any reviews of the popular cookbook.
There is a URL you can tweak to find eBay's catalog pages where reviews are published - if there are any. This URL ebay.com/ctg/145168699/r.html will take you to a product page in eBay's catalog for "Great American Puzzle Factory John Deere Growing Up Country 1000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle." If you change the number (145168699), you can find other reviews. Here's another URL, this one for a book: ebay.com/ctg/30971438/r.html.
CEO John Donahoe said in January eBay planned to build its own product catalog to overcome SEO problems. But when are we going to see any evidence of this ongoing project?
Are you receiving invitations to leave product reviews? Would you invest the time in leaving product reviews on eBay? And as a shopper, would you find eBay product reviews useful?