ShipScript has been an eBay Community volunteer since 2003, specializing in HTML, CSS, Scripts, Photos, Active Content, Technical Solutions, and online Seller Tools.
First, we must understand that the new "security" measures for https where brought about by Google with it's Chrome browser (not by Google's search engine). So the timeline for catching up was dictated by Google's October 2017 browser release. Since nothing is actually sold on a store page, there really is no urgency in updating the store early (https security applies to the transmission of data within any forms on a store, and there is nothing of note that gets transmitted on a store page). All store items open in a View Item page, and then in a checkout page, and the View Item to Checkout path was made secure in time for Google's browser release last October (even though nothing of note is transmitted on the View Item page either, and eBay's bid, buy, and checkout pages have always been secure).
The old stores landing page was not prematurely moved to the https protocol because too many store owners had created custom pages with their own embedded content. In many cases, trying to remove active content or remove embedded http (non-secure) media would collapse their entire stores, and some sellers have mega stores with millions of listings. It would have been a major disruption.
eBay's New Store experience was in the works with plans to be both mobile friendly and https secure, but the New Store was not yet ready in time for Chrome. Instead of requiring sellers to revise their custom stores twice, once to an interim format just for Google Chrome (an exercise of questionable value), and later to the final New Store format for Sellers, eBay decided to allow stores to continue as they exist on the old platform until the new stores platform was stable and ready to roll out.
This was actually an amazing concession to sensibility, where eBay avoided forcing store owners to needlessly adapt twice.
That new platform is rolling out this Spring. Because of their major programming investments and potentially huge inventories, the custom store owners will have another year to comply, and the old platform will exist during that time for those store owners. Those old stores (many of which don't display very well on a mobile device) will continue to be delivered over a non-secure connection, but we have already established that there is no real security risk in doing so.
When eBay finalizes the new stores platform with all of its bells and whistles and features, the remaining stores will be expected to move to the new platform and the old one will be retired.
I have seen a lot of posts on the forums from sellers wondering why the Store pages are not yet secure, and the short answer is that they don't need to be secure. The longer answer is that eBay decided not to put store owners through the extra pain and suffering of forcing them through multiple store revisions.
