eBay App Gets New 'Interests' Feature That Delivers Personalized Experience

eBay has added a new feature to its iOS and Android apps that will help users find products they want to buy. Called Interests, the new eBay app feature is able to curate products to users based on their personal wants and needs.

The Interests feature on the eBay apps works by having users answer a few questions, like “What’s your style?” and “What are your favorite activities?” Answering these questions will help the app figure out what kinds of products the user will actually want to buy. Additionally, Interests will also match products based on the user’s browsing patterns to deliver personalized recommendations.

The company said that it is able to curate products using machine learning and algorithms. Interests will automatically transform the eBay app homepage and show products that the user is interested in or related products that they may like.

“We realize that personalization is the future … that [people] don’t care about content that’s not personalized. Gone are the days where people in high offices who are designers, who are retailers, or editors are dictating trends,” eBay’s head of Browse & Personalization Bradford Shellhammer told Digital Trends. “Trends are coming from all over the place, styles are coming from all over the place … in order for us to react to this new world of shopping which is a personal experience, our catalog had to have the structure attached to it”

Users will also have the option to add more of their interests or editing the current ones. This helps the feature to keep providing users with relevant products right on the eBay app homepage. The company also said that it’s working on a new tool that would allow users to provide feedback system so that they can select items that they want to see more or less on the app.

“Our shopping experience should be as individual as each shopper on eBay,” Shellhammer said in the company's press release. “By asking people to tell us a little bit about their interests, we're delivering a personalized store built around the things you care about most.”

The new feature is available now for new and existing eBay users in the United States. eBay said that the Interests feature will also expand to other markets around the world and that it will also be included on its mobile website and on its desktop website. Users should expect eBay’s Interests feature to be made more widely available in the coming months.