"Every second that a user is confused, wastes time going round in circles or clicking between multiple screens where there used to be one, is good for ebay. Simplicity, efficiency and being user friendly count for nothing when time wasting, complications and confusion raise ebay's profile in the rankings and the share price is influenced by ebays place in them."

Here's another example, although I'll state upfront that I could be completely wrong, and it could just be my memory playing tricks. I'm sure someone will put me straight. If I get a bit of egg on my face, so be it!

When typing in the description field during listing (on the desktop site, not the mobile site or the app), I'm pretty sure that if you, say, clicked on the 'Bold' or 'Italic' icon, the text cursor would remain in situ in the text field, ready for you to type your bold or italicized text. What happens now is that clicking on one of those icons results in the text entry cursor disappearing, meaning you have to click back in the text field to make it reappear. "Big deal", some might say, but it gains in significance the more times you have to do this in a listing. It is particularly annoying when - as is the norm for me - it is paired with the lag on eBay, as the delay often means that I think a change (e.g. 'Bold' on, 'Italics' off) hasn't registered when actually it has (but I've already clicked on the icon a second time, thinking it had had no effect, so I've just reversed my own action, and have to click on the icon again!

Like I say, however, maybe I'm wrong, and it was always like this; it could just be that the lag I now experience has made me more aware of the need to click back in the text field before I can continue entering text in it.

A couple of other slight niggles (minnows, really, considering the more major issues with the platform):

1 - Sort of related to this thread: redundancy regarding access to one's Watchlist. From my landing page (and other pages) I can click on 'Watchlist', which is followed by a down arrow, indicating that clicking on it will bring up some kind of drop-down menu (that's what I normally associate the down arrow with). Clicking on it results in a large pop-up window showing a selection of items on my Watchlist and a clickable link to "View all items you're watching". Why doesn't clicking on 'Watchlist' just, you know, bring up all of your Watchlist right away (rhetorical question)? It does say 'Watchlist', after all, not 'Watchlist selection'. So there's another example of eBay making you take an additional step to get to a page that you should have been able to navigate to in one step.

But I can also click on 'My eBay' (which is also followed by a down arrow, only this one does actually yield a drop-down menu when you click on it) and select 'Watch list' (note that, even on the same page, eBay is not consistent - is it 'Watchlist' or Watch list'? Pretty trivial, I know, but when you're already wound up...). Clicking on that does take me straight to my full Watchlist.

Why the two different methods of accessing the Watchlist in such close proximity on the same page? And why does one method only initially show you a selection (determined by what?) of what's on it? Why would anybody wish to view a selected-by eBay sample of what is in their Watchlist rather than the whole list?

2 - Not really connected with this thread (sorry), but another minor issue that bugs me, and it's probably something that only affects my account (and maybe a few others), as I've never seen it posted.

In Seller Hub, to the right of 'Drafts' there is no figure at all. I do actually have an item in Drafts, so it should say '1'. Even when I have nothing in there it should say '0', but as you can see from the screenshot, it's just blank. It's been like this for ages, and it's one of those things that barely seems trying to raise with eBay (I imagine, on the basis of past interactions, that trying to get CS to even understand the issue, let alone remedy it, would result in more frustration than is caused purely by the problem itself). I generally know if I have something in Drafts, and even if I don't, I only need to click on the link to see, so I just put up with it.

Anyway, this is an excellent thread, with some great contributions. It had never really occurred to me that eBay (and other sites) benefit just from the amount of time a person stays active (clicking, scrolling, typing, etc.) on their website, even if a purchase is not made or a potentially fee-earning listing is not created, so reading the posts here has been an eye-opener.

Can someone let me know if my memory has let me down regarding the 'clicking in and out of the description text field' bit?!