New listing tool takes five times as long as the old way.

[serpentine21]

Today started the day that I am being forced to use the new listing tool. I find it to be horrendous. It is taking me five times as long to create a listing as the old way. Instead of everything being on one page, where you just keep going down to fill things in, you now have to keep mouse clicking on the different sections and scroll down all the options. The set up is time consuming and more confusing. I hate it to the point where I think I will be looking for another platform to sell on. I simply do not have the extra time to create listings in such a soul sucking and time consuming manner. Whoever in ebay decided this would be a good change needs to be fired. Who wants listings to take more time instead of less? Are you kidding me?

[sss1301]

You hit the nail on the head!   There is a phase of testing called "USER EXPERIENCE TESTING", which takes place after the changes are stable and complete, but not yet implemented.   Absolutely no high-volume public-facing UI should be implemented by a large company without going through this testing phase.  Essentially, it involved real users attempting to use their listing tool and collecting feedback and results.   Along with this, they would typically gather timings for common functions on the site using the old tool vs. the new tool.

For any IT project, it's a balancing act between "better, faster, cheaper".  You usually can't get all three.  In this case, eBay went for they thought of as "better", but only it that it unifies the interface across devices.  If they know about responsive design, they could detect the device and present the interface that's optimized for that device.  

I have to assume that "cheaper" was a big driver for this change.  They probably believe that it'll be easier for their off-shore team to maintain one set of code that's used for all devices, but that could've been acheived without causing this much pain for sellers.   "Cheaper" is also why they skip industry-standard testing phases and hammer their users with poorly designed changes.  Constantly.  

It's takes me forever to list items now -- performance is slower, which makes each extra click that much more annoying and the behavior of each pop-up in the item specifics seems to have it's own little quirks.   I assumed that once I went through the learning curve it would get better, but not by much.   If I were an eBay shareholder, I'd seriously consider dumping my shares -- this has to impact their future sales.   Frustrated  and unproductive sellers has to have an eventual impact on their bottom line.  I'd like to think they've considered all of that when they enter into a new project, but that's probably being too generous.  

In short, the new listing tool is a jaw-droppingly bad solution for anything beyond a mobile device.  The immediate fix would be to allow us to use the old tool until they've gone through more extensive User Experience Testing and actually delivered a tool that SAVES times instead of increasing it.  

[sss1301]

I did reach out to eBay support with a general question about whether we could still access the old listing tool:  Here's what they said (I added the bold-facing):

This is Mattie with eBay Support. First, let me say thank you for your loyalty to eBay for the past 23 years.  I appreciate you taking the time to reach out about the new listing tool, as I know being a 23 year member, you've seen a lot of changes come and go. I'm happy to look over your questions for you and provide what information I can.

In regards to user testing, we do roll out any changes to a set number of members to try out first ("Test groups") and gain feedback before the change is made for all members. We also rely on feedback being reported to us when a change is initially made, so we can look at what improvements can be made to the tool or feature. It is not available to me whether this is done across all potential devices, but I would think so since the design was being streamlined and made universal.

On most eBay pages is the option to provide "Your feedback" or "Comments" which for the new listing tool, is accessed on the Listing page in the top right hand corner of the screen by clicking the 3 dots. This also allows you to switch to the "classic" view if you want, but at some point this option may not be available or may not be available to you at all.

We do appreciate you providing your perspective, as this helps us see what may have been missed by prior groups as being an issue. I myself can see the layout isn't as user friendly due to the multiple clicks needed, so you're in good company here. Hopefully our feedback can make this new design a lot easier to navigate!

[siamjane8]

@sss1301 

   Thanks for sharing the comments of the actual ebay representative.  In speaking with ebay reps over the past 2 years about this tool- I have found that easily 99.5% of them shared that agents opinion as well and on their personal accounts also switch back because they like the classic better as well.  Everybody cant be wrong can we? Keep sending the feedback!  feedback along with reduced # of new listings is sending the message loud and clear that we need/prefer/want a desktop listing tool- not a phone app.    It takes a village to raise a child and it takes a seller community to fix ebay