The Practice of Code

Update March 9, 2010: It looks like this has been fixed.

eBay has been know to invoke thoughts of suicide or murderous rage for a variety of reasons, whether it be the way they run their auction site or the way they run their subsidiaries, like PayPal and Skype. Unfortunately, two of my consumer hobbies require me to regularly use eBay for the purposes of buying and selling.

Saved Searches

One of the features I’ve become quite dependant upon is the Saved Searches function. Firstly, if you find yourself regular constructing boolean queries at eBay, it saves you from having to retype them. However, the part I really like, is that when any new items match your criteria, you can have eBay email you a list of those daily.

Now, when I wake up every morning, I often like to have a brief perusal of my email on my iPhone in bed. Most mornings, I will get at least one eBay email notifying me of new items listed that match my criteria. See an example to the left.

It’s great! I see the pics, the prices, the links, etc. Sometimes, whilst still in bed, I’m even ready to buy the item, so I click the link. MobileSafari opens, I see a plethora of URL redirects and eventually I land at…

wap.ebay.com.au!

Notice the URL? Notice the lack of arguments? Of all the braniacs at eBay, none of them know enough about using URL redirecting to maintain the item number so they dump me at the “mobile phone optimized” version of eBay, named after the protocol it was designed to use, WAP?! Are you kidding me? Does eBay Australia think we all still have Ericsson T39s?!

The part that really frustrates me, is that 6-12 months ago, while eBay was still redirecting you to something sub-standard, you at least had the option to switch back to “Classic” view. This option is not present on this abomination. Instead, there is a link to the new eBay app at the iPhone app store. Here’s the problems with that:

1. I have the eBay iPhone app. It sucks.
2. If it didn’t suck, clicking a link in an eBay email isn’t going to send me there anyway.
3. If they did implement a protocol handler (ebay://) that did redirect to the eBay app, what’s going to happen when I click that link on a computer that’s not an iPhone?

Not Just Saved Searches

Let’s put aside saved searches for a moment. Have you ever used a watched list at eBay? Or bid on an item and been overbid? You might get an email like this reminding you that you only have a short amount of time to return and bid again. You might be away from a computer and relegated to using your WAP-capable iPhone. Guess what?!?! No listing for you! Come back when you have a real computer!

Even if I shelf my technical elitism, eBay is throwing away revenue! Whatever idiot is in charge of the mobile space in Australia, and whatever idiot he reports to, and so on and so forth, should all be sacked! Who approved this? Who tested this?

I wrote eBay in November regarding this issue. This was their response:

Thank you for writing to eBay Customer Support.

Your question is very important to us and will be treated with our full attention. We understand the need to get your question answered quickly, and in most circumstances we do so within 24 to 36 hours. However, there may be times when it will take up to 72 hours for you to receive a response. To speed up the process, we ask that you do not send in multiple messages about the same issue.

No response ever came…