Design and development of a portal for sellers
eBay Export

Client

eBay is an American company, one of the largest international online marketplaces that brings together millions of sellers and buyers from all over the world.

We cooperate with the company's Moscow office, which is responsible for Russia, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America.

Digital illustration of a white horizontal line connected to two small polygons, one blue and one turquoise, on a black background.

eBay не растёт в одиночку —
он развивается вместе со своими
пользователями.

Оказывая всестороннюю поддержку,
в том числе информационную, компания помогает продавцам развивать их бизнес. Ведь от успеха продавцов зависит и успех eBay.

Man wearing glasses and a blue shirt smiling and making an OK gesture while sitting at a desk with a laptop and notebook, with floating financial gains displayed.

Problem

It is not always easy for novice sellers to figure out the nuances of the marketplace on their own.

And the conditions for doing business in Russia, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America are full of their own specifics – everything differs from country to country in each region. Therefore, it became necessary to create a resource that would help sellers from these countries successfully sell on eBay.

Man with short hair and beard, wearing a dark shirt, holding a pencil to his mouth and looking thoughtfully at a laptop screen.

Mobile webpage for eBay export showing a woman looking at a laptop with sections highlighting selling activity summary and promotional offers on listings visibility and discounts.

Over the past two years, a huge amount of content has accumulated on the site.

eBay is developing as a platform, new topics are emerging in different areas: logistics, placement and advertising, customer relations, fees.

Solution

First, we created a simple website and laid out several articles adapted for the required regions for it.

eBay Export webpage showing global selling benefits, fee details, listing tips, and promoted listings information.

Over the past two years, a huge amount of content has accumulated on the site.

eBay is developing as a platform, new topics are emerging in different areas: logistics, placement and advertising, customer relations, fees.

In addition, eBay is constantly opening up new opportunities for sellers.

For instance, due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the company has introduced various mechanisms to support and protect sellers. Out of all this, novice sellers need to know one thing, and experienced sellers need to know another.

It became clear that it was impossible to organise so much content on the original portal,

therefore, we reworked its structure and made a redesign in order to:
— take into account all the needs of the portal users;
— support the introduction of the new brand guidelines.

Stages of work

Screen displaying lines of colorful JavaScript code with functions and script tags on a dark background.

Development

For convenient and easy portal management and creating new pages, we made a website using the builder on Wagtail CMS. It is a block-based editor in which you can select, combine and determine the order of the blocks of the future portal page, as well as customise field values and other options.

Technologies

With the new version of the portal, we have changed the underlying technology stack. The project has become easier to maintain, and the portal has become more technologically advanced and faster.

Design

The first version was released at the start of the project in 2018, and the second – two years later, when eBay has got new brand guidelines. At first, there were three colour schemes: green, blue, and yellow. Each of them could use a set of over 30 content blocks.

Laptop and smartphone showing a product listing with red handbags, next to text describing Promoted Listings boosting item exposure and sales by 30%.

Infographic titled 'Fees on eBay' outlining Insertion Fees, Final Value Fees, Listing Upgrades, and Fees in Select Categories with brief descriptions under each heading on a light blue background.

Statistics showing shoppers search for deals: 75% look for a deal or promotion, 42% want free or discounted shipping, and sellers new to Promotions Manager see sales increases up to 11%.

Three panels titled Selling basics, Seller Fees, and Meet our sellers with descriptions and Learn More buttons.

Statistics showing 75% of shoppers look for deals, 42% want free or discounted shipping, and 11% is sales increase visible to new Promotions Manager sellers.

Text reading 'eBay Stores' with a description about subscriptions, cost, and potential savings, above a 'Learn More' button on a light blue background.

Table comparing subscription plans Starter, Basic, Premium, Anchor, and Enterprise with benefits and monthly prices for selling tools and support.

Smiling woman with long dark hair sitting at a desk, alongside text about saving time with bulk editing for e-commerce listings.

Infographic with dark blue background titled 'The simple steps to selling' showing three steps: 1. List it - instructions on listing items with pictures and description, 2. Ship it - details about using eBay labels for shipping, 3. Get paid - information on receiving payment via PayPal.

Design 2020

The current brand guidelines contain a huge number of palettes, but we used only some of them for the portal.

As a result, we have got three new colour schemes:

Color palette scheme #1 showing 7 pairs of pastel to dark pink shades on the left and light to dark blue shades on the right with hex codes.

Color scheme #2 featuring two vertical columns of seven color swatches with hex codes, left in blue shades and right in green shades.

Color scheme #3 showing two vertical columns of six rectangular color swatches each, with hex codes: left column from top to bottom, light blue C5E5FB, sky blue 93C9FF, bright blue 659EFF, medium blue 3665F3 twice, violet blue 2B0EAF, and navy 121258; right column from top to bottom, pale turquoise CCFDCE, mint green 9EF4A6, teal 5EE471, dark turquoise 36CF57, dark teal 1BAB49, very dark teal 05823F, and dark teal 07522C.

At the same time, the nomenclature of the blocks has not changed, but several new ones have been added.

Each block is available in all colour schemes.

Promotions Manager description panel with a laptop and smartphone showing interface for creating special offers to market merchandise.

Promotions Manager tool page showing a description of features and a computer and phone screen displaying product promotion interface.

Promotions Manager tool interface displayed on laptop and smartphone with text explaining it helps market merchandise, create special offers, and is free for Stores subscribers.

Three panels promoting eBay marketing guides with images of people working: a man and woman with a laptop, a woman with shopping bags, and a man smiling at a desk.

Person wearing a backpack and hat looking at green hills, with text about relaxing with vacation holds and a create button.

Text reading 'Your First Listing' with a subtitle 'Everything you need to know to start making money now.' and a button labeled 'Create' on a pink background.

Screen with text 'Your First Listing' and subtitle 'Everything you need to know to start making money now.' on a dark blue background with an arrow icon.

Purple gradient background with white text saying 'Your First Listing' and 'Everything you need to know to start making money now,' plus a button labeled 'Create'.

Two people collaborating by placing notes on a glass wall in a bright office space, next to text about vacation holds for stores.

Six-step guide for shipping setup: 1) Find your best shipping rate; 2) Choose flat-cost or calculated shipping; 3) Turn on international shipping; 4) Specify where you'll ship; 5) Offer returns and refunds; 6) Communicate duties and taxes.

Three people sitting on bean bags and discussing, next to text about relaxing with vacation holds on a blue background.

Language versions

The portal is localised into five different languages: English, Español, Português и עִברִית.

eBay Export webpage in Russian explaining Promoted Listings with a man in glasses making an OK gesture.

eBay Export webpage promoting eBay's Growth Program for Businesses with a smiling woman writing on a whiteboard.

eBay Export webpage in Spanish showing promoted ads information with a man in glasses making an OK gesture near a laptop.

eBay for Business promotional graphic in Hebrew showing a smiling woman with glasses using a laptop, with text about keeping your eBay store always open and global reach.

Hebrew is worth mentioning separately:

The direction of writing in this language is from right to left, so we needed to make everything on the portal adapt without problems.

It was not easy – our operating systems went crazy when we wrote from right to left in one window and from left to right in the other. But we did it.

Content

eBay Export is primarily an educational content portal that aims to help the eBay seller community at all stages of their interaction with the eBay platform.

In the news section, sellers can find an industry agenda about anything that could affect their business.

eBay Export webpage with guide on setting up shipping, including shipping terms, costs, and options, alongside a mobile view showing Final Value Fee information.

New materials are published several times a month.

There is a content plan for reference sections, and the news block is updated according to the market and global situation.

eBay export webpage showing benefits of global selling with icons for boosting listing visibility, discounts, setting ad rates, and monitoring reports, plus steps for listing items and fee details.

New materials are published several times a month.

There is a content plan for reference sections, and the news block is updated according to the market and global situation.

The texts are prepared by our partners - the Textarium content agency.

Mobile screen displaying eBay Export webpage section titled Final Value Fee with navigation links and a text explaining Managed Payments activation and fee relevance.

eBay Export webpage showing a step-by-step guide on how to set up shipping, highlighting shipping terms and shipping cost with detailed recommendations and links for shipping resources.

eBay Export page highlighting Plovdiv, Bulgaria with export region info, local product categories, seller profiles, and video testimonials.

Landing pages

In addition to the development, design and support of the portal, we also make landing pages for promo campaigns – we tell eBay users about special offers and give them the opportunity to take advantage of them.

Before the redesign, all landing pages were built manually. The new version of the portal allows you to put them together in the admin panel without involving developers.

An extended set of colour palettes is available for them, which do not depend on the primary colours of the portal.

eBay for Business promotional page encouraging international business growth with icons for more visibility, buyers, and benefits, listing countries to sell on eBay for free, and features of the eBay app.

eBay for Business webpage promoting the eBay Business Development Program with sections about store support, growth managers, training, selling basics, COVID-19 support, and seller community.

eBay for Business promotion showcasing free 30-day international business listing with benefits like more visibility, buyers, and benefits; flags for selling in US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain; tips for sellers; and info on listing on multiple international sites via one app.

Product team

Together with our client, we work as a single product team.

At our weekly growth hacking meetings, we generate hypotheses on how to increase the project's key metrics, quickly test them and evaluate the success of the experiments. All results are tracked using Google Analytics.

Two people collaborating in an office, one woman reading a document and a man writing on a glass wall with sticky notes.

Results

The portal has been live for two years already. We are constantly working on it and setting new goals.

Current results:

the portal's audience has doubled over the past year.

100K

unique users per month.

Hands holding pens and pointing at business charts and graphs on paper during a meeting.

Client’s testimonial

Maria Tyurina

marketing manager for sellers

The eBay Moscow office is responsible for the company's business in more than 200 countries across the world. For eBay sellers from the US, UK, Germany and several other countries, it is primarily important to develop domestic sales, and we focus on export sales online.

There is a lot of information for sellers on the global eBay sites but mostly related to domestic sales. When we were planning to create export.ebay.com our first task was to organise all available information on one portal to help sellers from our region successfully develop export sales worldwide.

As a result, with the JetStyle team, we went much further and not only systematised what we already had but also created new services and content for our sellers. The portal was highly appreciated not only by our sellers but also by the regional and global management of the company.

I highly appreciate our joint work with the team, not just because from an operational point of view everything works almost perfectly: the speed of updates, clear compliance with the tasks set, but also because I feel the sincere involvement of the entire JetStyle team in the project, — they understand the business objectives of eBay, offer solutions, show independence when working with my colleagues from other countries (there is a lot of work considering we are in different time zones), they are concerned about the design and external view of the site.

We have a lot of plans and ideas for the future to develop the portal, and with such a team, I am sure that we will succeed.

Partner's testimonial

Maria Bardashun

co-owner of Textarium content agency

Export.ebay.com is an ambitious and large-scale project. Previously, eBay sellers had to study various sources, including those in a foreign language, to find the information they needed. Now, in order to get answers to their questions, sellers from different regions just need to visit export.ebay.com.

Now our company puts together, analyses and explains in simple words all the most important instructions, news, updates for sellers, and the JetStyle team is responsible for visual design and content structuring.

From the very start of the project, we have been working closely: together, we put forward and test hypotheses, introduce new sections and services, experiment with content presentation formats and elements on the site. The JetStyle team offers optimal technical solutions even for the most difficult ideas to implement. The analytics provided by colleagues at JetStyle becomes the backbone of the content strategy and helps to continually improve the user experience for eBay sellers.