OpenSea redesigns parts of its NFT store as sales continue to fall

OpenSea, one of the largest NFT marketplaces, has redesigned its profile and collections pages with the aim of making the site easier to navigate and putting the NFTs themselves at the center of attention. In an announcement on Thursday, the company said these redesigns are “just the beginning” of the company’s work to fine-tune how its site works.

In my opinion, OpenSea’s refreshed profile pages look a bit like those of Twitter and Etsy. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, however. The older version could be a little difficult to navigate at times, and it looks like the market has ironed out some of the edges.

The new Profile and Collection pages make it easier than ever to navigate OpenSea.

Our goal is to make it easier to showcase your favorite content, find new stuff from creators you love, and discover more NFTs.

—OpenSea (@opensea) May 26, 2022

The collection page, which features groups of NFTs, has also been revamped. It looks a bit more modern and puts less emphasis on metrics, like how many people own these NFTs and which is the cheapest NFT in the collection.

*An example of the old collections page, with its expanded description.*

While the redesigns can be nice, they come at a bit of an awkward time. Over the past year, NFT sales have declined, sometimes at a fairly rapid rate. (To be fair, at least OpenSea hasn’t chosen this time to launch an entirely new NFT marketplace like Coinbase has, with painful results so far.) According to DappRadar, OpenSea’s average selling price , the number of merchants and the volume of sales are all down since last month – although it comfortably retains its most active marketplace in terms of dollars spent.

*OpenSea is still the biggest market by most metrics.*

The NFT market as a whole also continued to decline, according to data from Not fungible, although the image will look different depending on how you cut it. If you look at the daily averages, the number and dollar amount of sales has declined throughout the year (despite a massive spike on May 1 when the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club launched a project called Other side). Looking at the monthly averages, the sales volume is still down, but the dollar sales amount has picked up.

*The past year of sales volume in numbers (orange) and dollars (white), based on daily averages.*

*The USD sales story is a bit better if you look at the monthly averages.*

It seems unlikely that a redesign will revive the NFT market, but for those who remain (nearly 124,000 people used OpenSea last week, according to DappRadar), the experience should be a little more pleasant.