Ebay CEO Meg Whitman presented the eBay profits for Q1 and it turns out they’re breaking records. But as Jakob Nielson points out, the listings have only increased by 2%, while sales are up 14%. But as I posted about earlier with the eBay motors improvements, the designers at Ebay have been improving things a lot. It seems that this is a great example of usability turning directly into dollars. And once they’ve got the design right, they don’t have to keep paying for the improvements.
So eBay has shown us that abandonment due to poor usability is indeed very costly, and it’s not worth buying more traffic if they are just going to bail from the site in confusion.
If your company is unable to afford to buy more traffic, it may be best to look inward. What is your abandonment rate? If you set your sites on reducing that rate, it can have the same impact that buying more traffic can – perhaps more. Split up your pages, try new things, measure!  Yes, it’s sweat equity… but the beauty of it is that once you have your formula, it works long-term….and it’s free.
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