eBay Unveils a New Logo After Seventeen Years

eBay prepares to take on Amazon.com in the fixed-price sales market.

Last month, Microsoft unveiled its new look, a makeover for its 25-year old logo. The change was made to embody the shifting desktop experience that Windows 8 brings with its Modern UI. Now it looks like the company has inspired another to do the same. On Thursday, eBay executive Devin Wenig unveiled a new logo for the company to represent its own changes.

The new logo may keep the iconic eBay colors, but everything else about it has changed. Once the leading place to find auction listings, vintage goods and rare collectibles, eBay has since shifted its focus to better compete with online retail giant, Amazon.com. According to Wenig, the logo redesign is meant to reflect a shift of focus from auctions and collectibles to fixed-price, buy-it-now merchandise.

"It's eBay today: a global online marketplace that offers a cleaner, more contemporary and consistent experience," Wenig explains. "Auction-style listings, used goods, vintage items and quirky, one-of-a-kind finds are still a big part of what makes buying and selling on eBay special. But we've evolved a lot in the past few years, and eBay is much more than auction-style listings today."

Although the new eBay may prove to be a better competitor in the online marketplace, some would argue the company has last its unique touch, with a logo redesign that puts the nail in the coffin. Tom Walter, a member from the team that developed the original logo commented on Techcrunch:

This watering down and blandifying of a truly great logo, to me, represents what has happened to eBay overall. Once a place to look for the unique and hard-to-find, they left that behind in their quest to out-Amazon Amazon. In that search, they decided to leave the soul of what made that site experience and company so great behind. And by the way, the overlapping colors in the first logo represented the interaction between buyers and sellers in a very personal way. Now the letters barely touch, like they have cooties. And the staggered baseline in the original represented the fun and excitement of finding exactly what you wanted and getting it.

Working along side Meg, Jeff, Rajiv, Mary Lou, Maria, Tom, Steve and scores more from that initial era when nothing was preordained, we were building something that touched people's lives and empowered them in a way few companies ever have. Guess that mission is gone and replacing the logo is the best way to eradicate that feeling from the marketplace and the company. Nice going, eBay, you went ahead and fixed something that did not need fixing. Took something really wonderful and made it, "Eh? Who cares?"

What do you think of the new logo? Let us know in the comments below.

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