You can now purchase w/o opening a listing? ... Are you joking? ... WHY!?

[ajs_coins_and_alchemy]

Buyers can now add an item to their cart without ever even opening the listing. A buyer can literally buy something based on the main image & title, if they even bother to look at the pic or read the title....

I understand streamlining and making things more efficient, but this sounds ABSOLUTELY INSANE. Amazon doesn't even offer this! (Edit: apparently Amazon does offer this ...) Why would you do this!?!? 

No buyer should ever ever ever do this, and I bet very few buyers are dumb enough to do it ... but why the heck would eBay encourage it?

[tobaccocardyahoo]

It is a perfectly reasonable feature IF the item is actually NEW.

Given then creative definitions some sellers have of NEW  it is not safe on Ebay even then.

As for items which are USED this is insane,

I just did a quick search in a category where all items are well over 100 years old and do not see this feature.

Is this something you saw an announcement for or something you discovered?

[ajs_coins_and_alchemy]

@tobaccocardyahoo 

Searched 1958 Wheat penny, discovered it as shown in image in post.

Coins clearly aren't categorized as "New" or "Used"

Obviously doesn't apply to auctions BTW

Edit: I'll do you one better, I find it activated on items 200+ years old

2nd Edit: I found it active on "Pre-Owned" iPhones and fishing poles. Seems it may be available on anything besides auctions

[tobaccocardyahoo]

Let's hope this is a test in a few categories and will not spread like some disease.

[golfingaddict]

It's in the categories I sell in.

Why in the world would anyone buy a used item without opening the listing and reading the description?.

 I guess you can always fall back on the Money Back Guarantee.  No need to read, you can always return it by filing a false MBG claim for anything, even if you don't even know what you are ordering.

[pcobra93]

In fact they should make a buyer check a box that they have read the item description and understand what they are purchasing.

[chevymontecarlo88]

---

@tobaccocardyahoo wrote:

It is a perfectly reasonable feature IF the item is actually NEW.

Given then creative definitions some sellers have of NEW  it is not safe on Ebay even then.

---

That is the truth.

[dhbookds]

@tobaccocardyahoo 

@ajs_coins_and_alchemy 

you (and everyone else with a store) already has it..........a popup window......

[valueaddedresource]

I've seen the Quick View being tested in search since last year but the Add To Cart button is definitely new.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/eBay-Testing-Quick-View-in-Search/m-p/33765643#M2216902

@wastingtime101  I know you had been following the quick view feature before, thought you might find this new iteration interesting.

[hartungcards]

"...they should make a buyer check a box that they have read the item description and understand what they are purchasing."

You mean like that box you're suppsed to check when you're told to read your credit card's privacy statement?

[isaiah53-57]

Think about it - This company is buying back their stock, which is normally a tactic to try to give a sense of stability - Last thing in the world they would want is for the stock to decrease and stock buyers to loose their confidence when they are increasing their ownership...

In my opinion, they are going to do everything they can from here on out to try to report better numbers every quarter - Making it ultra easy to buy maybe even without much care of whether the sale actually sticks or not - I would think they may stand a lot to gain from things like this in the short term...

I can only scratch my head when I think of whats up with what appears to be an epidemic of non-paying buyers that you constantly read about here - All the 0 feedback bidders who win and never pay - All the people who accept offers and never pay - And also what seems like an excess number of people who pay and then ask you to cancel - I would not be in the least surprised to hear that those sales count toward their user numbers and maybe even toward total sales if it was paid for? I dont know, but what I do know is it makes absolutely NO SENSE that so many people would be wasting the valuable time they were given here on this earth, bidding on, and making offers on items that they never intended to pay for... thats just downright hard to wrap your head around - And to me, it makes sense to think that new ways like this new tidbit the op is talking about will surely add to those numbers...

[gator08041971]

Yeah, this is going to be awesome.

/sarcasm

Granted I have been with eBay a long time, and have seen a lot of crazy changes, but two pretty wild changes in the past day are making me   O_o

[valueaddedresource]

It's obvious why many sellers are not going to like this, but I can also say as a buyer, I would be really annoyed if I clicked an "Add To Cart" button that didn't actually add the item to my cart, but instead popped up another window that required an additional click to really add the item to my cart. 🤦‍

[gurlcat]

This would make sense if they only applied it to items in your Watchlist, but in raw search results ....uh, no. 

[wastingtime101]

The quick view option depicted in @dhbookds screenshots and mentioned by @valueaddedresource has been in place for a while on store home pages, and for much longer on a buyer's saved search feed: 

https://www.ebay.com/feed

I'm pretty sure I've seen it in other places, too.

I will add to cart and purchase without viewing an item when I'm buying from a place like Target and it's an item I've purchased a zillion times, like aluminum foil. Same with Amazon. Both sites have a "buy it again" feature that I use on products I purchase frequently. The only time I'd do that on eBay is if I was buying the same product from the same seller (like shipping supplies). I'd never do it for any item from any retailer when I did not know exactly what I was getting, and to know exactly what I'm getting I read the full item description/specifics.

I sell new product and I do not want buyers purchasing without viewing my description / specifics to make sure they're ordering the right product for their needs.

On the same exact new product I've gotten buyer remorse returns: "I thought it would be bigger" from one buyer and "I thought it would be smaller" from another buyer. Clearly they both neglected the measurements provided, or perhaps they are unable to visualize how big/small 8" is. A problem like that will increase if buyers are encouraged to purchase without looking at the item first. Might be fine for a big box that can handle the level of returns. Less OK for anybody below that level.

Add to cart is OK as a method of shopping as long as the buyer stops and looks at the listing pages from their cart before buying. I do that. Searching for a tshirt and I add tshirts from 6 sellers to my cart as I look around (I don't bother with the watch list - it's an extra step that wastes time). Once I'm done shopping around I go to my cart, open up all 6 listings, and choose the 1 or 2 I want, removing the rest from my cart. I do that pretty much everywhere I shop. It helps me to see the items next to each other when I'm deciding between colors.

So ... I'm definitely not anti-add to cart, but I am anti-purchasing without looking at descriptions, especially on a site as varied as a marketplace like eBay.

In the end, add to cart isn't the worst thing. If it was a buy it now button, that would be the worst thing. 😁