Limitations of eBay’s Design

Because of the Glowing Choices, Personalized Recommendations, Peer Reviews, and Desert Oasis design elements mentioned above, Amazon users never feel confused about what to do next. You move quickly towards the Win-State, and especially if you made the “feel-smart” decision of purchasing Amazon Prime, your item will ship to your home within two days, with easy return and refund options.

eBay on the other hand, does not enjoy the same luxuries of making users feel smart. To start, eBay’s interface is a bit more like Google+, where the user doesn’t really know where to find what they want. With a variety of horizontal and vertical menus on the same screen, along with multiple dropdown menus, it’s easy for a user to spend over four seconds before figuring out where they want to go.

Also, because of eBay’s DNA of being a bidding marketplace, it does not have as much control over the experience of the users...