eBayCopied

eBay's logo, with its jumbled, overlapping letters in red, blue, yellow and green, had been in place since the company launched in 1995. In September 2012, 17 years later, it introduced its first new one, reported by The Verge, the Los Angeles Times, Adweek and Reuters.

Marketing Week reported it as the first major brand refresh in eBay's 17-year history. The letters now touch, which the company said represented its connected community of more than 100 million active users, and the site was redesigned for a cleaner, more contemporary experience. President Devin Wenig called it a new eBay, recalling that the first item sold, in 1995, was a broken laser pointer, and that most sales now came through fixed-price Buy It Now and increasingly on mobile; changing a logo known the world over, he said, was not a decision made lightly. The work was done by eBay's in-house designers with an outside brand agency, and was due to go live on the sites and in advertising in mid-October.

The new logo keeps the four colours, which Adweek said were dialled back a bit, but the letters no longer overlap or float at different heights. They now sit on a line in a skinnier font, still touching. President Devin Wenig said the vibrant colours and touching letters represented a connected and diverse community, which eBay put at more than 100 million active users and 25 million sellers. He described the logo as rooted in a proud history while reflecting a cleaner, more contemporary and consistent experience.

The business reason was clear. Reuters reported Wenig saying the design reflected a shift away from auctions and collectibles towards full-priced, buy-it-now merchandise, as eBay tried to compete better with a faster-growing Amazon. The Los Angeles Times said most items were by then sold at fixed prices. Wenig told staff that, because the logo was known the world over, changing it was not a decision made lightly. Rollout across eBay's sites began that autumn.

The Verge called the old arrangement an artefact of late-90s exuberance about the web, and Adweek said it had been iconic precisely because it was so ugly.

That is the dilemma. The new version is tidier and easier to set, and it keeps enough colour to stay recognisable. But the bounce was eBay's personality: the feeling of a chaotic flea market where you might find anything. Straightening the letters straightened the promise, which, for a company chasing Amazon, may have been exactly the point.