BuyerCommand mentioned on eBay Radio

Griff and Lee, the hosts of eBay Radio, mentioned BuyerCommand during their "Ask Griff and Lee" segment of the show on March 4.

[Segment 3 of 4 @ 15:30]
BuyerCommand on eBay Radio

Here is a transcript:

Lee: So, Ok, I found something else...
Griff: Did Ya?
Lee: Do you know what BuyerCommand.com is?
Griff: No
Lee: Ok. Go to BuyerCommand.com
Griff: Alright. This involves typing?
Lee: It does. BuyerCommand.com
Griff: Alright, I am there.
Lee: No I joined, its free. You see the little thing up at the top that says Login or Join?
Griff: It's loading.
Lee: Ok
Griff: What is it loading? Is it loading something on my computer? [jokingly]
Lee: What it is, is a different way to browse eBay.
Griff: A different way.
Lee: It was invented to help the developer's 5 year old son shop for model trains instead of depending mostly on scrolling it works of keyboard commands and shows you items one at a time with a large, catalog style picture on your screen.
Griff: Yeah I am looking at some corvette.
Lee: Registration is free. So I joined, and I typed in Lancome.
Griff: Lancome... What's with the Lancome?
Lee: I like their products.
Griff: Well I know but their not exciting.
Lee: I use other products, but I like Lancome. They give away a lot of free stuff.
Griff: So you keep hitting the j and .... Oh look... this is fun. Ah... this is going to suck the dollars out of my wallet.
Lee: So what you do is... I typed in Lancome. Big Big picture comes up, then, So Big picture comes up of this Lancome item that is for sale right now on eBay. It tells you how much, current bid, the time left, and how many bids there are. And then you can click to the right down at the bottom, View Item on eBay, and when you click on that it goes to the eBay listing. Directly to the eBay listing.
Griff: Hmm
Lee: It's just a different way to browse eBay, that's all. For some people what could be simpler?
Griff: Oh this is cool, yeah...
Lee: See what I mean?
Griff: Yeah. It's fixated on the hotwheels stuff though I see. Alright... I will play with it later.
Lee: No, you can put in whatever you want.
Griff: I know, I know, I did it. I am not signed in so its like.
Lee: Oh, I see... I signed in. I took the risk an signed in.
Griff: Did you now?
Lee: Yeah... That's who I am.
Griff: Ok.

My previous blog post regarding my story about building BuyerCommand for my son introduced BuyerCommand as a simplistic way to search eBay. The product is that, but I want you to know it is "SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT!"

Instead of highlighting simplicity I want to highlight efficiency. I will write some new stories, and add some video posts that clarify the efficiency features. Be on the lookout for new stuff in the coming days/weeks. If you have feedback then send it to me at feedback@buyercommand.com!

Helping my Son Discover Model Trains on eBay via BuyerCommand

My son likes model trains, and one day he wanted a new engine. He was 5 years old at the time of this story, and the O-Scale model train locomotives he had up till this point in time were well worn from rough play. I suggested that eBay might have a large collection of cool yet attractively priced trains. He and I sat down at the computer, I fired up eBay.com, I typed in "model train locomotive", I told him to look through the trains, and I left him to find a few he liked.

After approximately 45 seconds he came back to me, and asked to do something else. I asked him why he didn't keep reviewing the trains, and he said it wasn't very fun. We returned to the computer together, and I watched his behavior over his shoulder. I realized that reviewing the listings was a broken experience for him. He told me that he kept getting lost, and that the pictures were too small. My professional background as a software developer led me to analyze the problem and imagine a better solution.

I spent a few days building a prototype version of a new way to review eBay listings. That first version only displayed the search result pictures in a large frame, and I enabled the left and right arrow buttons to move forward and backward through the search results. I named the site BuyerCommand. I sat him down at the site, and asked him to review the trains again. After about 15 minutes he was still looking through listings, and had found some great locomotives. I knew BuyerCommand met the needs of this young man, and further work on it might help others as well.

I kept on working on ideas for BuyerCommand. I realized that an open design that allowed the end user unlimited customization options would be great for all the different types of users that might want to browse eBay differently. I had found success in enabling the keyboard for navigation, and I have always been a advocate for the efficiency of keyboard shortcuts in other apps so I enhanced that functionality. I wanted a quick way to change the search criteria so I included a command line for entering the search. I determined that all of those items could be present for all the different possibilities, but in the simplest form BuyerCommand could be that simple app that my son enjoyed that first day. It was simple to use, and it helped him discover cool model trains on eBay.

Visit BuyerCommand.com to see how you can shop eBay with larger pictures, simple keyboard shortcuts, and a simple yet powerful command line. Let me know what you think.

Refine eBay Searches in BuyerCommand

I wanted to write a quick post to inform everyone of the new features we pushed to production on BuyerCommand today.

1. sort and sortorder - the sort command accepts the following: bestmatch, bestmatchcategorygroup, bestmatchplusendtime, bestmatchplusprice, bidcount, country, currentbid, distance, endtime, priceplusshipping, startdate. sortorder accepts ascending or descending.
   
2. postalcode and maxdistance - the postalcode accepts your zip code, and maxdistance is an indication of the number of miles from that code to limit the search.
   
3. minfeedback - a feedback rating number.
   
4. notcatid - a category id number for exclusion. With this command you must include a keyword.
   
5. condition - the condition command accepts new and used.
   
6. type - the type command accepts all, auction, and fixedprice.
   

TIP!!! If you want to find some really interesting results try using parameters like the one in this search:

baseball type:auction minbid:1 sort:bidcount sortorder:descending

Additionally you should notice significant improvements in load time. We followed many of the recommendations in YSlow (a tool for measuring performance), and those changes should improve the load time performance of BuyerCommand.

You can also watch this video to get an overview of how the feature works.

Compare Shopping on eBay.com versus BuyerCommand.com - Better Effeciency

Watch this video to see Jaye compare shopping eBay for duffle bags on eBay.com versus BuyerCommand.com. The video attempts to explain the efficiency gained by using BuyerCommand.

New Sharing and Invocation Features

I am excited to introduce the newest features released in BuyerCommand.com. We are introducing a collection of sharing, and URL invocation features that allow you to incorporate eBay items into your social experience. You can specify search criteria in the URL and send those URLs to others so that their initial experience in BuyerCommand is the same search criteria or item you have located.

BuyerCommand provides a set of "verbs" or "commands" that indicate the search criteria. You can use these to produce more specific search results. Here are a list of a few commands:

• sellerid
• catid
• itemid
  
• minbids
• maxprice

Basically now you can invoke BuyerCommand by defining these in the URL... something like this:

http://buyercommand.com/sellerid/ok98/minbid/1

or

http://buyercommand.com/itemid/150403042702

or

http://buyercommand.com/catid/156521

As you can see in that first URL you can chain together a collection of commands to invoke the application using compound search criteria. Use the URL features to start BuyerCommand in the desired search, and send those links through Twitter, Blogs, or email to others to review the items you have seen. Sharing eBay listings, interesting sellers, or interesting categories with other users will be easier with these features.

Please visit BuyerCommand, test the URLs mentioned, and share some interesting eBay items. Also be aware that I uploaded a new video to YouTube that introduces BuyerCommand. You can view that at http://www.youtube.com/user/buyercommand .

Finding Stuff on eBay Efficiently

eBay is a vast site of interesting content, however I think most people don't think of eBay for value priced items or even the entertainment value of looking through the stuff people sell. This was recently clearly communicated by a eBay insider on eBay radio. eBay is spending big on marketing the site to the general public again, and they even have a mobile van visiting areas around the country to promote the site.

BuyerCommand was born out of my desire to provide an alternative tool for browsing eBay listings. A tool that allows a user to quickly review item details with bigger pictures, customize information displayed on the screen, and efficient browsing tools.

Today I upload a beta version of the site to http://beta.buyercommand.com. With this version you can do some relatively powerful surfing through listings, but it is only scratching the surface. I plan on enhancing the user interface, available modules, and other features to create an compelling dashboard for browsing the vast content on the site.

Visit BuyerCommand and experience eBay in a new way and take command of your buying experience.

Navigation of Listings via Idioms (Keyboard Shortcuts)

You may not be familiar with the term idiom in the context of web applications, but idioms are implemented via features like keyboard shortcuts. An idiom in this context is a simple instruction that invokes a command. In BuyerCommand, the "j" key and the "k" key move the search results listing forward and backward. These keys are idioms for search results navigation. It may seem awkward to use those two keys, but the main reason for this is that most people are right handed and if they are "Home Row" typists, then the two most dexterous fingers are sitting on top of the "j" and "k" key. Since navigation of lists is the primary action when reviewing listings, it is natural for these two keys to be associated with search results navigation.

BuyerCommand has a mission to make browsing eBay listings more efficient. The utilization of keyboard shortcuts and other idioms is necessary to achieve maximum efficiency. Keyboard navigation is more precise and has the capacity to be invoked at an extremely fast rate. These characteristics really help a user achieve maximum efficiency when browsing eBay listings.

Here is a link to an excellent video presentation on the concept of idioms. If you have any question about idioms you should be able to watch this technical video and have a greater understanding of the value of idioms and the need for their inclusion into modern Web 2.0 web applications like BuyerCommand.