How to Start Your Own eBay Collections: A New Feature for Buyers and Sellers

When I first opened my eBay home page today after being away from the internet for meetings, I noticed a new idea called Collections.

I also received an email from eBay explaining Collections and how to put them to good use.

What is it? How do you use it? How to maximize your buying experience from it? How to maximize your selling experience from it?

Let me show you how easy it is to create your own Collections and join millions of other users showing off theirs.

Major changes are coming to eBay. Some have already occurred. If you are not aware, as a buyer and/or seller, you may wish to know that there are really important decisions factoring in to the changes eBay is making.

According to eBay's third quarterly report from October 2013, eBay faces increased competition online and offline.

Some of the areas in which eBay is improving are:

• user experience
• greater ease of buying goods
• lower (or no) shipping costs
• faster shipping times
• more favorable return policies
• higher growth of sales of fixed-price items
• higher expected service levels

• After creating Collections, you'll notice the box on the left side of the home page showing you've created Collections. (It appears with a little green box showing how many collections you've created.)
• On the right side, you will see a new "Meet the Curators" which is a showcase of other Collections. Preview those for examples.
• On the top right of the screen, you will notice "What's on eBay Today?" with Collections of the day. (This is also shown as the first picture of this article.)

Sellers on eBay are encouraged to create inspiring and engaging Collections of items.

Buyers on eBay can view and purchase a product directly from a seller's collection! This means that eBay is encouraging sellers to create Collections from their own listings of items, but not exclusively. Sellers may also create Collections of items they personally collect such as frog figurines or fashion.

Millions of viewers visit eBay daily.

1. Search for an item.
2. On the listing, at the top, click on Add to Collection.
3. Create a name for the Collection.
4. Add a comment.

If you like shoes, here's an opportunity for you to search for and add shoes to a Collection. All of your favorite shoe listings will be in one place, versus the old "watch" list.

Simply search for shoes which eBay has simplified even more by adding type of shoe at the top of the search screen.

This doesn't mean you are under any obligation to purchase these shoes. It's just a Collection of shoes that will show up under your user ID that other eBay users may follow.

Some of you might remember eBay My World feature. Whenever you clicked on a user ID, you could pull up My World which sellers used to post business policies or other interests about themselves.

My World ended when eBay contracted with Lithium, the new forum moderators.

But now eBay has expanded the seller's user ID to also include:

• Items a seller has listed for sale
• Seller's Collections
• Interests that the seller follows
• Seller's followers
• Seller's reviews
• Seller's guides

These are public, but can be made private.

Whenever someone used to come across a seller they would like to save, they would click on save as favorite seller under the seller's user ID from a listing.

But now, eBay has created a new follow feature to allow buyers and sellers to follow Collections.

The "followed" Collections will show up on the eBay feed on the user's home page.

Supposedly, buyers who have already saved you as a favorite seller will automatically become your followers. In the Wednesday, October 23, 2013, weekly chat with eBay staff however, some sellers reported that this feature was not working at this time.

It's also encouraged to gain more followers via social channels like Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter.

While rumors have surfaced that eBay was planning on getting rid of stores all together, eBay has announced that opening an eBay store maximizes the potential to spotlight a seller's inventory and Collections.

It seems that not many people like change.

While there are those that support the new features from the first announcement, others may have to be convinced these are good moves for future growth on eBay.

Some eBay users feel that there are so many broken issues with eBay's site such as notifications that aren't always received (especially for payment or that an item was sold), and other technical issues such as automatic updates that don't necessarily work as they are supposed to.

Also, some buyers feel the new look of eBay is too overwhelming. They prefer a quick search and find approach.

The home page has a constant scrolling showcase of items pertaining to the interests of each individual user. For example, I have mine set to craft supplies, scrapbook pages, and handmade greeting cards. It is limiting however as we can only have four interests at a time.

The recommended amount of Collections are five to ten with around 15 items per collection. It increases choices and variety!

In this expeditious growth of internet commerce, eBay has to stay competitive.

All over, companies are trending toward social media. I think eBay is implementing these new features to follow in that direction.

In addition, many companies, not just eBay, are growing toward a trendy, younger, techy, and social movement.

If it hasn't happened already where you work, I know around here, some businesses have asked their employees to do their own marketing and join sites as LinkedIn to drive in more business.

Times have definitely changed.

Do I think it's better or worse? My truthful answer is time will tell.

After spending an afternoon using Collections on eBay however, I do see how they can be quite useful for the individual user. If not for generating sales for a seller, at least for organizing a want list for a buyer.

As a buyer, you may wish to start Collections based on items you want to purchase in the future.

I find that it's better and easier to use than adding items to a watch list. Whenever a watch list item ends, I usually don't buy the item. But with the new Collections, I'm able to save items to it and it will automatically update with similar items when the item ends.

I thought of another really great way to use the Collections feature. For example, if you are doing home renovations, or remodeling a craft room, you'll be able to put all of your ideas in to one place in a Collection of items. That way when you are ready to purchase those items depending on the stage you are at on your project, the items will be there so you won't have to go searching for them again. Or, if your items have ended, eBay automatically suggests similar items which you may not have noticed the first time around which could end up being more to your liking any way!

I played around with the new eBay features today and created some of my own Collections. While I had fun doing it, there is one point to make!

It's wise to choose really good photos for items you place in your Collections. I noticed a lot of photos were blurry and didn't look as appealing in my Collections.

If you are a seller, this is really good to note for future listings. It gives you an idea of which way eBay is heading and how to maximize the potential from your eBay experience.