eBay buyers have experienced some technical issues using the eBay mobile app of late. eBay also announced recently it is working with new technology to make some improvements to the mobile experience.
eBay buyers began complaining on May 3rd that their old purchase history began clogging up their mobile app, with no way to remove them.
An eBay moderator acknowledged the problem the same day, stating in a response to buyers on a discussion board thread, “We recently enabled a longer purchase history in the apps. We will look into why items that were hidden/archived are now showing up.”
Buyers were still reporting the problem in the thread on Sunday, 10 days later.
“Mine is the same way,” one buyer wrote. “I hate this. I hid then for a reason. And now they are just cluttering up my page. I only want to see my new stuff. I hope they fix this soon!”
“Yep same here, absolutely ridiculous,” another buyer wrote, “I’ve got page after page of all my hidden purchases now showing, going back to 2016, this really needs fixing.”
“I can’t even select them to re delete,” another buyer wrote, who called the issue annoying.
Buyers mentioned the problem occurred on the Android app, they said the website is working normally. No one mentioned whether the iOS app was impacted by the technical issue.
Last week, buyers were reporting they were unable to sort search results by time on the eBay Mobile App – Best Match was the only option. An eBay moderator addressed one buyer’s complaint on Twitter: “Sorry for the trouble! This is not intended, and our mobile team is investigating this issue as we speak. Thanks for the heads up. If you need to sort your search results, you can use the eBay site as a workaround for the time being.”
Sorry for the trouble! This is not intended, and our mobile team is investigating this issue as we speak. Thanks for the heads up. If you need to sort your search results, you can use the eBay site as a workaround for the time being. ~Tyler S.
— Ask eBay (@AskeBay) May 5, 2018
In the meantime, eBay’s tech team is trying to improve the mobile experience by allowing users to access the marketplace while offline. “Today, we are exploring new ways to make it easier for you, as buyers, to access our global Marketplace if your internet connectivity goes out in the middle of shopping with an offline experience.”
It appears the focus is on helping shoppers in lesser developed countries by using Progressive Web Apps (PWA). “PWAs are regular web pages or websites, but feel more to a user like a traditional application or native mobile application. We want to leverage the new capabilities to enable an offline experience for eBay users, particularly those in developing countries who do not have reliable network connectivity. Now, our focus is inclusion.”
The project will be live in the second half of 2018, but eBay advised users on how to see the experience in action (Android device required) – see the announcement on the eBay corporate blog.
