Business • Marketplaces
30 eBay Australia Statistics and Facts
17 Oct 2018 • 5 min read
Thinking about expanding your retail business to sell on eBay? It will be a great choice, if eBay’s latest figures are anything to go by.
Here’s a short history of eBay, plus a rundown of everything you need to know about eBay in Australia, from who’s selling to who’s buying and what they’re buying.
In September of 1995 in San Jose, California, Pierre Omidyar launched AuctionWeb, a site “dedicated to bringing together buyers and sellers in an honest and open marketplace”. Two years later in September 1997, and after AuctionWeb had reached a million items sold the marketplace was officially renamed eBay.
eBay launched into Australia in 1999 along with sites in Germany and the United Kingdom and is now available in 180 countries.
Over the next 20 years eBay introduced a variety of features and services that you would be familiar with and that make it the platform it is today, including Buy It Now, eBay Stores, and eBay University.
Today eBay isn't just a top online marketplace, but a global ecommerce leader; a platform where buyers and sellers come together to exchange almost anything from run-of-the-mill electronics, clothing, and concert tickets, to slightly less mainstream goods like a grilled cheese sandwich with the face of Virgin Mary which sold for $28,000 in 2004.
eBay.com.au is the top retail site in Australia and fifth most visited site overall, sliding into the charts a couple of places higher than wikipedia.com and news.com.au.
More people visit the eBay website each month, than the number who visit the next seven retail websites on the list combined (including Kogan, Amazon and JB Hi Fi).
This means that half of Australia is on eBay at any one time.
Over half of visits to eBay are from mobile users, which means that many purchases are made on the go. And in our instant-gratification world, eBay’s mobile app makes satisfying our ‘in-the-moment’ desires all the more easy.
8 million downloads might sound like a lot, but this is in comparison to the 414 million downloads of all eBay apps across the globe!
Over half of eBay.com.au orders are currently delivered in 4 days or less, and this number is likely to increase with the recent introduction of eBay Guaranteed Delivery.
eBay Guaranteed delivery allows buyers to filter and select items based on a guaranteed delivery date of 2, 3, or 4 days, a competitive play that will help win back customers from the likes of Amazon who are known for their speedy shipping, especially with Amazon Prime.
eBay is a highly profitable channel for many Neto sellers, helping them to reach new customers and increase sales. In fact, in a survey we conducted of our merchants, of those selling on eBay, three quarters of their total sales came through the eBay channel.
Neto have been helping thousands of retailers sell on eBay, web and physical stores for over eight years, providing sellers with an easy way to manage listings, inventory and sales from one central platform.
Where to from here? Learn more about selling on eBay in this post, where we discuss everything from pricing to inventory to perfecting your listings. Or if you're ready to see why so many other Australian retailers choose Neto to sell on marketplaces like eBay, why not start a free trial?
