eBay announced[1] an update to its iOS and Android native apps that it says helps reduce the time it takes for a seller to list an item for sale on its marketplace.
eBay said the update taps into its collection of structured data to pre-populate an entire listing with just an item name or scanned barcode.
"At eBay, we're dedicated to delivering a seamless and efficient selling experience for both first-time and seasoned sellers alike," says Kelly Vincent, eBay's VP of Consumer Selling Product & Engineering.
"This latest update continues to leverage eBay's structured data, which helps catalogue the 1.1 billion items on the platform, to instantaneously populate product details, pricing and shipping information in the listing flow," said Kelly Vincent, VP of consumer selling and product engineering at eBay. "This is one of many enhancements we'll be making this year. We'll continue to leverage structured data and new technology developments to help our sellers."
The app update comes nearly a year after eBay launched[2] its first AI-powered site feature for sellers. Last July, the company introduced a new visual search feature that lets shoppers use a photograph to find products for sale on the site.
The technology behind the feature was developed in 2015 during the eBay's annual Hack Week event. Since then, eBay said it's had a designated team of engineers working to incorporate more AI-based services into the company's ecommerce experience.
More recently, eBay hired Jan Pedersen[3], former VP of data science at Twitter, to join the company as vice president and chief scientist for artificial intelligence. Pedersen leads eBay's AI efforts, including strategy, computer vision, natural language understanding, and machine learning.