Case Study: eBay – Auctions and Actions
BACKGROUND eBay has come a long way from its beginnings in 1995. It’s now a multi-billion-dollar company with 15,000 employees that operates in 30 countries. A key to its success is its commitment to continuous improvement, and its focus on its customers. That’s why eBay and Qualvu came together in May of 2010 to conduct an online qualitative research study to understand the online vs. in-store buying habits of eBay users. It’s one thing to know who’s buying what when and where, but it’s quite another to be able to actually see and hear how participants go through the buying cycle online. And giving eBay that ability is an invaluable tool only Qualvu was able to deliver.
METHODOLOGY eBay harnessed the power Qualvu’s online screen tracking tool and pocket cam device to track the sequence of clicks on their web pages and to give eBay a bird’s eye view into what, where, when, why and how users navigated the website as they talked their way through the process.
STRATEGY Qualvu’s Videodiary Platform housed the pre-recorded questions, client assets (such as images, advertising, screen shots, etc. for consumers to react to) and recorded video of 48 participants from around the United States. Participants were asked a series of 16 questions ranging from online purchasing habits to favorite websites to in-store shopping experiences. Participants were able to record video of their activity as they were navigating to and from various websites and even took pocket cams into stores to record their habits as they purchased items from a store.
“The Qualvu Platform is the perfect setup for this type of study. Never before have you been able to compare side-by-side video of in-store shopping to online buying habits of the same people.” CEO John Williamson said. “We are very pleased with the outcome of this study and are seeing this request more and more from our new and repeat clients.”
The entire project from recruit to report took less than 12 days. This included recruiting all 48 participants, deployment of pocket cameras, completion of 16 video questions, analysis of hundreds of hours of video and a final branded report delivered to eBay available online in presentation form.
SUMMARY “One of the reasons eBay has been such a great success story is their focus on the customer experience. We were honored that eBay chose Qualvu to gain deeper insights into their customers’ behavior, and we knew that our Videodiary Platform was the ideal way for them to do that,” John added.
