New features within the updated apps include the introduction of  multiple search views so iPhone app users can see search results in table, grid or tile view, and an iPad and iPhone-accessible Shopping Cart. Previously only available on desktop and Android, the new Shopping Cart functionality helps U.S. and UK users buy items from multiple sellers with a single payment and delivers on eBay’s promise of an intuitive and consistent buying experience.

“We want to provide seamless shopping experiences across all kinds of devices and platforms. It’s what our most engaged customers want from eBay,” said Kevin Hurst, VP of Mobile Products. “With the Shopping Cart now available on desktop, Android, iPhone and iPad, consumers can start shopping on one screen and easily finish on another.”

Other features included as part of the iPhone 3.0 and iPad 2.3 updates are an improved user interface (in particular, the iPad gets a more customizable home screen), new photo editing tools for the iPad-version of the app and driver license scanning technology — to help sign up new users in most states — for the iPhone version. All features are meant to ensure a consistent experience, no matter where a user interacts with eBay.

The app updates speak to eBay’s determination to make every screen shoppable and is the next logical step in improving the pace of mobile innovation at eBay. The company’s last significant mobile update — introducing the ability to start a listing on a smartphone or tablet and finishing on the web, and vice versa — was introduced in January and has already helped increase first-time listing on the site by 67%.

Photo: eBay Inc. 

Yesterday, eBay released significant updates to its iPhone and iPad apps, giving consumers a faster, easier and more streamlined experience for buying and selling from their mobile devices.

The updated eBay apps will play an important role in eBay Mobile’s year to come. Mobile shopping continues to shape the way consumers buy and sell, and users have clearly embraced mobile listing. Roughly 1.8 million new customers joined eBay through a mobile device in the first three quarters of 2012, and eBay Mobile currently adds an average of 2.4 million listings per week.

eBay for iPhone 2.7 and eBay for iPad 2.2 enhance the mobile buying and selling experiences by making them as seamless as possible and eliminating nearly all points of friction, giving consumers intuitive experiences that connect them with what they want, when they want it.

For sellers, the app updates integrate the best of mobile devices with the desktop. They can now save drafts of their listings on their smartphones, where it’s easier to upload pictures, and then complete the process from their PCs, which allows them to write longer item descriptions from a keyboard. The reverse process — starting a listing on a desktop and finishing via mobile — also applies. Category, pricing and shipping guidance, the ability to work on multiple listings, and a new photo module for the iPhone app round out the new feature set.

“With eBay’s app updates, selling has never been simpler,” said Kevin Hurst, eBay’s VP of Mobile Products. “We’ve streamlined the mobile selling experience to give consumers step-by-step suggestions for pricing and shipping, and we’ve loaded the updates with new features that let customers seamlessly switch between mobile and PC – to more quickly and easily upload photos and edit listings.

Buyers, meanwhile, will gain access to an improved auto-complete search feature and a shorter checkout experience. The updated apps will also allow users without associated PayPal accounts to  make purchases via the app with a new guest checkout feature. There is also a new single-screen view to review and confirm payments.

Cheers,
RBH

Watch the video demo:

The app integrates Microsoft’s latest mobile technology that allows users to stay up-to-date on all their eBay activity at a glance:

* Scroll through the panoramic user interface to quickly engage in Daily Deals, popular searches, my eBay activity – bids, items won, selling or watching, messages – and reminders
* Personalize the shopping experience with saved searches, user-controlled push notifications, sharing favorite items with friends and unique background themes
* Use “Best Offer,” eBay’s fastest growing way to buy, where users negotiate the price of a particular item, with real-time notifications when an offer is received and finalized
* Quickly pay for items with PayPal in just a few clicks

The eBay app will be available for free download to Microsoft Windows Phone 7 users across the globe. The ability to shop eBay’s 200+ million listings will be available in eight countries: Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, United Kingdom and United States.

Cheers,
RBH

Sprint has teamed up with some of the most recognizable brands in the country to bring this revolutionary experience to customers – brands including Amazon, Blackboard, Comcast, Disney, E!, Electronic Arts, eBay, ESPN, Home Shopping Network, LatCel, MTV, Notre Dame, Oprah Winfrey Network, RadioShack, Weather Channel, Where and Yahoo!

Sprint customers can customize their device with up to five ID packs. Once an ID is loaded – easily in one quick step and free with a select service plan – users can further customize it with additional apps and content. ID packs can be easily switched out without customers losing the apps and content they value most. Because Sprint ID packs are built using the Android platform, the ID packs work across various manufacturers and will launch on three Android handsets – Sanyo Zio™, Samsung Transform™ and LG Optimus S™. A range of lifestyle packs, plus Yahoo!, game packs from Electronic Arts and business packs, will be immediately available with more packs rolling out in this quarter and beyond.

The following video featuring eBay’s Steve Yankovich was included in the Sprint keynote presentation at CTIA this afternoon…

“Smartphone technologies are transforming the mobile phone into the new digital wallet and consumers are clearly using their phones to shop,” said Steve Yankovich, vice president of mobile and platform business solutions, eBay Inc. “Our Sprint ID pack will help us make the most of that trend by making eBay’s mobile applications more discoverable and acting as an information hub so that shoppers never miss out on great deals and items they’re watching, bidding on or buying. Our ID will also notify users about new eBay apps or features we have released.”

Check out a video demo of Sprint ID.

You can read the full Sprint ID press release for further background too.

Cheers,
RBH

Chuck Pletcher has unveiled a new mobile app for eBay Classifieds over on the eBay Classifieds blog…

The app was built to have a similar feature set to our main iPhone app:

* Auto-locate directs you to your closest eBay Classifieds area
* Browse and search any category by keyword, price or any attribute
* View, reply to, or forward ads
* View ad location on Google Maps
* View all ad images on a single page
* Keep tabs on ads with our handy Watch List
* Super-easy ad posting with up to eight images from your camera or photo library
* Facebook and Twitter sharing

For you iPhone users out there, don’t fret, there’s a whole eBay Classifieds mobile page dedicated to you too, complete with two apps to download.

It’s all iPad, all the time this week it seems (even one of my favorite new TV shows got in on the act on Wednesday). Given the recent emphasis on mobile commerce coming out of eBay, it doesn’t come as any surprise that the company would have its own news around the release of the new Apple hardware.

The eBay for iPad app builds further upon the mobile commerce innovation already coming out of the company and delivers a new and cool looking shopping experience for iPad users.

Debuting in the top 10 most downloaded free iPad apps in the iTunes Store, eBay for iPad allows users to:

** View and search through items in a rich, visually compelling gallery display
** Scroll through a vast selection of items seamlessly using their fingertips
** Easily filter search results by price, category and more using intuitive finger controls
** Quickly pinpoint items in a desired range with a Pricing Histogram
** View item details without navigating away from search results

eBay expects to generate $1.5 billion in merchandise volume via mobile commerce alone in 2010.

Cheers,
RBH

Related Reads:
TechCrunch: eBay’s iPad App: Go Graphic Big Or Go Home

Mobile Commerce Daily indicated that “there were many worthy nominations, but after careful consideration, eBay did an outstanding job in its mobile efforts,” citing the high number of items bought via mobile on eBay this past holiday season (1.5 million) and the generation of more than a half a billion dollars of transactions via mobile in 2009.

From the article:
Mobile shopping
Holiday shopping went mobile this season, with a surge in buyers using the eBay iPhone application and other eBay mobile properties to find great deals while on the go.

The number of items bought via eBay mobile applications this year was triple last year’s holiday volume.

Mobile deals
EBay launched the Deals application, providing iPhone and iPod touch owners with a constant stream of the best deals across hundreds of millions of eBay.com listings.

Available as a free download in the App Store, the Deals application features intuitive navigation, customizable search features and PayPal integration enabling mobile check-out.

EBay launched its first application for iPhone in July 2008 and ever since has continued to ramp up its mobile commerce initiatives.

You can read the full breakdown here.

Cheers,
RBH

Nearly 6 million people have eBay on their iPhone and eBay receives three-quarters of a million unique visits a day via mobile apps.

Here are some facts and figures out of the press release…

Cheers,
RBH

According to an IDC report earlier this year, mobile Internet users will double in number by 2013 to surpass one billion. Here are some mobile eBay trends:
• Nearly six million people are carrying eBay around in their pocket
• Users from more than 165 countries visited the eBay mobile Web site and iPhone application
• 1.5 million items were bought on eBay using mobile phones worldwide this holiday

In 2009, an item sold every 2 seconds via eBay mobile applications worldwide with luxury items a favorite of shoppers this holiday season; some recent mobile transactions in the US include:
• $19,108 for a 23-foot deck boat
• $10,025 for 250 grams of pure gold bullion
• $10,000 for a Boston grand piano made by Steinway
• $3,888 for a Hermes Kelly bag
• $770 for a Jean Paul Gaultier wool and leather coat
• $600 for a pair of Christian Louboutin camel colored patent leather pumps

eBay connects buyers and sellers across the globe:
• This holiday, more than 20 million items were purchased by eBay shoppers from sellers in another country
• Shoppers in more than 200 countries bought items on eBay this holiday season
• Sunday, December 13, was the biggest shopping day of the year with more than 2.3M transactions in the U.S.

eBay Daily Deals on eBay.com were flying off the shelves:
• The DVD for the movie “UP” was $6.99 (77% savings off MSRP) with free shipping – sold out (2,000 units) in 16 minutes
• Toshiba 32-inch LCD TV was $279 (49% savings off MSRP) with free shipping – sold out (nearly 2,000 units) in 26 minutes
• The Vibecellular 2-pack of LED Headlamps for $9.99 (75% savings off of MSRP) sold through 10,000 items in just under 11 hours
• The first four Daily Deals on Dec. 7 sold out in 90 minutes

Under the tree this holiday:
• More than half a million Zhu Zhu pets scampered into homes across the U.S. in 2009; in the first two weeks of December alone, there were more than 5 million Zhu Zhu Pet and related item searches on eBay (To watch how Zhu Zhus took over the U.S., visit: http://www.ebayholiday.com/zhu-zhu)
• Most expensive item to find a new home this holiday was a $495,000 1965 Shelby Cobra; followed by a 2010 Lamborghini Roadster which sold for $390,000
• Disney rules the DVD market, with “The Lion King,” “Cinderella,” “Beauty and the Beast” and the new “UP” movies leading sales
• Christmas morning is all about the video game systems, with the Nintendo Wii as the most popular item this holiday season and Xbox 360 a close second
• More people playing “Call of Duty” than any other video game