New eBay Statistics Showcase Profitability

Before Amazon got so big, there was eBay for everything that you wanted to buy. Well it was strictly an auction website at first, over time the juggernaut relaxed its rules and ultimately evolved into a marketplace of online stores as well as individual sellers and the always popular auction option.

Today, it’s one of the most widely used marketplaces online, in par with other giants like Amazon and Alibaba. A longstanding debate exists as to whether or not you should choose to sell on Amazon, eBay or both, due to the differences in fees that are charged and fulfillment requirements.

Knowing how the current eBay statistics can help your online store succeed is important in helping you arrive at a decision as to whether or not this marketplace is suited for your retailing needs. We’ll stuff your brain full of the most current eBay facts so that you can better decide.

Take a gander at this collection of eBay facts we’ve compiled with all the resources you need to fact check to your heart’s content. In case you are wondering how Amazon stacks up, we’ve also go you covered with these Amazon statistics.

• Bear in mind that these statistics are sourced from eBay directly and some external sources as well. As time passes, some of these statistics can and will change. But for the most part, they provide an accurate illustration of just how large an ecommerce beast eBay has become.
• As of the fourth quarter of 2015, Business Wire reports that eBay has a gross merchandise volume of $21.9 billion. It reported revenue of $2.3 billion with an active buyer base that increased by 5% to number 162 million users. During this past year, the company repurposed $550 million of common stock.
• As one of the largest marketplaces online, eBay is stocked with just about anything and everything that you could ever want to buy. The company hit its two-decade marker on September 3rd, 2015, notching 20 years of business, reported Venture Beat. According to their report, the very first sale on the website was for a broken laser pointer that fetched $14.83 at auction.
• At any given time, there are over 800 million items that are on sale in this marketplace, with over 160 million potential bidders/buyers. 80% of the goods on the site are new, relative to the marketplace’s evolution from being an online auction house to something much more grandiose.
• You could say that eBay is a product search engine. In a recent eBay publication, the company noted that there are more than 250 searches for products each day. It also noted that over 20,000 packages are shipped daily from sellers to buyers, making it one of the largest marketplaces online.
• While eBay was originally an American invention, over time the rest of the world has gotten on board. This has led to an exodus of domestic revenue. As reflected in this recent Venture Beat report, over 60% of the revenue comes from outside of the U.S.
• One of the primary reasons why people love to shop on eBay is due to the deals that they can easily find. These daily deals are a powerful revenue source for the marketplace, something eBay says amounts to over 19,000 deals per day.
• A Tech Crunch article has reported that the eBay app has been downloaded over 279 million times. This helps make more sense of the fact that an average eBay app user spends over 150 minutes per month shopping, says Marketing Pilgrim.
• But how profitable is eBay? According to eBay, very. Q2 of 2015 yielded $4.4 billion in revenue, with the company announcing a $1 billion stock repurchase option. This was piggybacked by the then new announcement that the company was splitting off again from payment processor PayPal, which it had acquired previously.