Ebay Wants To Catch Customers ‘Snacking’

Ebay’s UK boss wants to catch customers ‘snacking’ on the internet as more people access its site for short periods though mobile devices.

The firm is expecting sales made though mobile devices to increase by more than 50 per cent this year to about $20 billion (£13.2 billion) worldwide. The site’s vice-president for UK trading Tanya Lawler said she wants to encourage shoppers to visit the site more frequently which she says will mean they have more opportunities to make purchases.

Over the coming weeks, eBay will introduce personalised pages for mobile users using data on shopper preferences.

‘My aspiration would be for us to be changing and providing these offers in very high frequency so that every time you come back you see something that’s relevant to you,’ she told trade newspaper Retail Week (£). She cited Net-a-Porter as an example of a web site she visits frequently. ‘I’m always going back to look at what’s new if I've got five minutes to spare.’

‘We want to drive disruptive innovation and ask what’s the next big thing. We have to change the game and thinking differently about things is what we do,’ she said in the interview. Lawler, formerly supermarket Sainsbury’s ecommerce director, also said she believes technology-based firms such as web sites can evolve much faster than retailers. She said it was a ‘challenge’ for retailers to innovate quickly

Comment: Lawler has set her sites on something that savvy bloggers and ecommerce web sites have known for a long time. Regularly refreshing your site with new product and information engages customers and keeps them coming back. Doing the same on mobile sites clearly has its problems - not least the size of the screen for smartphone users. With the rapid move to mobile shopping it will be interesting to see how retailers large and small translate large-screen strategies.