People usually don’t know how much their items are worth and easily become disappointed if they sell for less than what they are expecting. Being able to indicate early in the listing process how much an item can sell for is a big winning factor in terms of increasing seller retention and satisfaction.

Users intending to sell a smartphone or tablet normally start to do some price research on Google. It is well established that the highest sales price is usually achieved on eBay, but since the site didn't rank high on search engines, eBay was frequently not the first choice. Furthermore, improving SEO was a big opportunity for eBay to funnel more potential sellers.

While the listing experience had considerably improved with the release of the consumer-to-consumer listing flow, the team realized that we needed to go one step further to be able to win the cellphone and tablet trading market.

As the lead designer on this project I focused on ease of use, speed of the listing process, and an engaging visual. I decided early on to use an innovative UI to differentiate eBay from its competitors. I created multiple iX and visual explorations before narrowing down on tiles as the main way to make selections on the form. A tight collaboration with content strategists and the SEO team helped define a user experience that was aimed at an improved ranking on search engines.
To illustrate the interaction as well as the transition effects, I created prototypes on Invision and Pixate. Finally I worked closely with the product team and engineering to assure that the interaction, transition effects and visual were implemented properly on mobile as well as on desktop.

In a subsequent phase, we added the option for sellers to send their phones and tablets to an eBay valet. eBay Valet sells people’s items on eBay on a consignment basis, letting eBay do the selling for the sellers. We also continued to iterate on content to keep improving ranking on search engines. As part of this phase, I redesigned and simplified the existing Valet flow, and transformed it into a multiscreen experience.

The vertical flow for cellphones was released in April 2015. It spearheaded the design of other categories such as tablets (released in November 2015), video games, vehicles, and parts & accessories. Depending on the search term, eBay now frequently ranks on the first or second page of Google's search results. Plans to release more product-specific vertical flows are currently under consideration.