eBay's Snapshot View Makes Shopping Snappy

eBay sure has been making a lot of changes lately, and I've been itching to review them all.

Let's start with one of my favorite changes, today: the Snapshot view.  This lets you select an option to view eBay's search results as many rows and columns of images across your screen, so your eyes can take in a lot more items in one look than you could previously.

Well, heck, the whole point is a visual, right? So check out one of my searches:

The effect is similar of what you could previously (and still can) get by using the timeBLASTER tool, which lets you save searches, run them at set times and then view them as "photo albums" offline later. As AuctionBytes reports in its article on Snapshot view, the tool is still available for an annual subscription of $39.95 at http://www.timeblaster.com.

But Snapshot view integrates the view into the eBay site itself, of course. With Snapshot view, you can still sort the search results by highest or lowest prices first, for example, but you need to hover your mouse over the photo to get the item's details -- item title, current bid price, etc.

I really think this Snapshot view is going to be  a great boon to shoppers, especially as the holiday season approaches (and doesn't it always seem like some sort of holiday is approaching, even if it's National Meerkat Appreciation Day?).

I tried two searches with Snapshot view, which you can eyeball yourself by going to the eBay Playground  (http://playground.ebay.com), doing a search, then clicking Snapshot View left of the Sort by drop-down menu.

One was for a Nintendo Wii, which of course my 8-year old son wants for his 9th birthday. The other was for a Pucci top. I found the Snapshot View more useful for the Pucci search, as the variations of colors, shapes and sizes of these wildly patterned tops is much greater than the rather Vanilla looking Wii, and having all that variety nicely laid out on one page was very nice to have.  Still. the view was also good for Wii-shopping.

So, amid all the changes some of us may not like, and the constructive criticism eBay receives, I think this is one most shoppers are going to like. But of course, the proof is in the shopping.

The AuctionBytes article about Snapshot View is at http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y207/m09/abu0199/s04.

Have an opinion on Snapshot View? Leave a comment here.