eBay sellers better get used to the new Seller Hub that eBay began testing last year. It’s not just another tool – it’s part of the backbone of eBay’s selling technology. That’s according to Shan Vosseller, Senior Director of Product at eBay, who spoke to sellers gathered at the eBay OPEN event in Las Vegas on Thursday.
Vosseller also announced that Seller Hub is now available to all sellers as of Thursday.
eBay had rolled out an assortment of tools over the past 20 years, he said, showing a slide with names of tools such as the Seller Dashboard, Selling Manager, My eBay, and Manage My Store.
But another slide showed the new approach eBay was taking that grouped tools into three categories: Web; APIs (often used by larger sellers as well as third-party developers); and feeds. eBay is looking to make the three areas work together seamlessly.
“Web” on the slide refers to the Seller Hub tool announced last September, which entered beta-testing in October. 170,000 US sellers are already using Seller Hub, and eBay is committed to evolving it, John Valente, Director of Product for Seller Hub, told eBay OPEN attendees.
The default settings show modules comprising key areas of importance to sellers, with the ability to drill down into reports and functionality. Sellers can also customize it thanks to the modules approach.
The Seller Hub includes functionality from Selling Manager and also includes some basic analytics, which they are continuing to build out.
Vosseller also announced eBay was working on a Seller Hub mobile app – he will have more to say about that later this year, he said.
The key theme of the session on selling tools was that eBay is consolidating seller tools and simplifying them. What wasn’t said but seemed to be implied was that eBay would eventually deprecate all of the other tools, leaving one Seller Hub for sellers to use (in addition to APIs and feeds, that is).
Another message the managers tried to convey is that they are listening to sellers and acting upon that feedback.
“We built two decades of tools and have a ton of functionality, but we need it to be easier, more accessible, interconnected and, better. We want to move beyond making eBay just easier, however. We want to be a trusted partner, a partner that acts on the input that we get from our sellers,” Vosseller said.
“We also want to find not just ways to take friction out of the system that make it easier, but also make you more successful – to get helpful information and data that you can use to make decisions.
“We want to accelerate your business, and put the wind at your back, not just take friction out from in front of you.”
Vosseller said there would be tons coming over the next few years in the selling platform. “Our goal ultimately is for eBay to be the world’s most powerful selling platform, for the world’s greatest sellers.”
