eBay has announced some small changes to the buyer experience with regard to how proxy bids are displayed and also placement of calculated shipping. Here are the details:
Hi everyone, I'm Evan Liang with eBay's Buyer Experience team. In the next few weeks, we're going to make a couple of improvements to the buying process. Both of these changes will be relatively minor, but should give buyers more of the information they want.
Bid History -- more proxy bid information. To help educate users who aren't as familiar with proxy bidding, we're adding the option to let members see all the past proxy bids that were placed on an item. In short, buyers will be able to see the full bid history, including when our system automatically raised a buyer's bid to beat a subsequent bid. To see this expanded bid history once it rolls to the site, simply click the link labeled "Show automatic bids" above the Bid Time column on the right side of the table. One thing to be sure of – just like today, the high bidder's current proxy bid is not revealed. (Learn about the proxy bidding system here.)
Calculated Shipping amount to be displayed in more places. Currently, when the seller uses the Shipping Calculator, the shipping amount can be calculated on the item page but shows up as "Check item description" on other pages during the buying process. Later this month we'll be able to carry over the calculated rate and display it on the Review Your Bid page so that buyers can make a more informed decision. We will also display on the calculated rate on several other pages where we show shipping costs, such as the Bid History page and within Bid Assistant. http://pages.ebay.com/bidassistant/
Sincerely,
Evan Liang
Buyer Experience