Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Watched Item Deletion advice for Ebay

Ebay, your delete process on ended listings I've been watching is poorly engineered.  The minimum clicks required for me to remove a single 'Ended' item is three. Three? That's right, three!

1. Check a box next to the item I wish to remove.
2. Click on the Delete button either above or below the watched items being listed.
3. Click the Confirm button on a confirmation pop-up window.

If you make me click the boxes next to the items and then click the delete button I'm going to call that good.  The following confirmation just becomes a very annoying and unnecessary step. What's next, a confirmation to make sure my confirmation answer was what I really meant?

Now, I can see that your intent is to promote people keeping active listings in their watch list, or perhaps preventing accidental deletions of active listings.  However you can handle this in a much more elegant fashion.

Here's how...

You obviously can tell the status, 'Ended' versus a time left value.  Simply check the list of items I've marked to be deleted after I click on either Delete button.  If all are 'Ended' just do it! No confirmation.  If there are any active  items THEN fire a confirmation pop-up that tells me WHY you are asking for confirmation.

Something like:

"You've chosen to delete 5 watched items, 2 of which are still active. Are you sure you want to delete these 5 items."
cancel (text) and confirm (button) options

or

"2 of the 5 items you're deleting are still active.  Are you sure you want to delete these items."
cancel (text) and confirm (button) options

-Brian