eBay UK breaks all records for Christmas sales
6/12/2010 at 20:37
Not only was yesterday the busiest shopping day of the year on eBay UK, but it broke all the records by a considerable margin. More than 5 million shoppers logged on yesterday making 1.4 million purchases. Sales were up a massive 18% compared with last year with 17 gifts being purchased every second of the day.
DVDs maintained its top spot from last year as the favourite gift to purchase on “Super Sunday”, with women’s shoes in second spot and CDs in third. Unsurprisingly given the prominence of the Fashion Hub on eBay, clothing, shoes and accessories made up eight out of the top 10 most popular items bought yesterday.
International sales were up 11% as buyers from overseas headed to eBay UK. With the exchange rate in their favour sellers willing to ship overseas are cashing in and if you don’t currently ship outside the UK it’s time to strongly consider doing so. With UK still in economic turmoil making the most of the weak pound and overseas markets is one of the easiest ways to increase sales.
It’s good to see eBay going from strength to strength and with the freezing temperatures and the stress of busy high street crowds eBay is still the place to shop especially in the run up to Christmas.
Tekgems says
9:48 pm on 06/12/2010
I read last years record for amazon was 73 orders per second. For a regional site 25% less nothing to be ashamed of. You across the pond had the luxury of a shopping cart which did not get rolled out in the USA yet.
Do you know if shopper incentives like reward portals drive more traffic? Has ebay’s seo efforts paid off? Better customer service? Tv ads?
I think is eBay is making the right changes but their brand has taken such a reputation dive that I’m not sure Orr can ever recover. I get more negative stories passed on to me than positive.
Warren says
12:12 am on 07/12/2010
I had a good Sunday selling on eBay as well.
Hereford United Fan says
6:49 am on 07/12/2010
I had a good Sunday but Monday was 50% up on that. Fantastic day.
Whirly says
6:53 am on 07/12/2010
Stonking December so far, makes up for some of the hassle.
northumbrian says
10:30 am on 07/12/2010
no doubt ebay uk will break all records for where is my item emails, neutrals, low Dsrs ,and claim backs!
from the idiotic silly sods that think the post is collected and delivered by star trek beam up
Ellen says
6:50 pm on 08/12/2010
It’s all ebay spin. Number of transactions??? Wot counts is cash in the till. Does anyone actually believe that the UK population is spending more than they did at the same time last year? I’ve been taking my parcels to the PO every day, pay up and job done. This time last year, there were huge Qs and I would leave my orders and the PO would stamp then when they could – usually after close of business.
Spin.
Gary says
6:58 pm on December 8th, 2010
I would concur with that. I visit the post office and it is the speediest I have ever known it for this time of the year. Straight through no messing.
I had not even thought about it until I read Ellen’s reply above.
Gerry007 says
9:10 pm on 08/12/2010
It’s funny, but we use PPI & when we make the Posting order online, we can tell just how busy it is generally.
If Royal Mail (and hence sales) are busy, it can take 5 minutes to get an order ‘completed’ ready for printing.
The wek before the snow came, we had a confirmation done, competed within 35 seconds.
That simply means they are NOT busy & hence assuming RM is the main carrier for most Post, means it ain’t busy out there.
When you Currtys & the likes offereing sales every week (I, mean, one sale ends & another starts within 2 days).
Even our local £ shops are closing down….!!!…..Is eBay UK really excempt from that??
Old Hand says
1:25 am on December 12th, 2010
Pound shops work on margins you may not believe, £1 bought for 25p, more or less, can’t win otherwise.
Mark says
1:51 am on 09/12/2010
Cross promotion does not seem to be working properly!
Chris says
8:52 pm on 11/12/2010
Just read the original item again. 5 million logged on and they made 1.4 million purchases. Now I find that poor. Just before Christmas. Generally awful weather across the country and we the ebay sellers are unable to generate a minimum of 1 sale per customer logged on. I remember years ago a friend was the Manager of a High Street Store he always told me that his ambition was to sell a minimum of so much(its years ago and I cannot remember the exact figure) to every potential customer that entered his branch. Surely on that basis we the ebay sellers can make at least one sale per potential customer logged on. Remember that some customers will make multiple purchases so its actually quite poor. After all I as a seller also am a buyer on ebay. Hardly a day goes by without me having a browse in those areas that interest me and every few days I buy something(sometimes even multiple items) So the next question should be Why is it so poor? Is it us the ebay sellers are not putting on attractive items at good attractive prices or is it perhaps the site that maybe is so confusing to the potential customer that after getting lost and frustrated they just give up. Obviously there will be some who browse with little or no intention of buying but surely it should be possible to rack up one sale per person logging on.
Old Hand says
1:36 am on December 12th, 2010
eBay has a bad rep, real bad.
Most posters on this board sellers, you should listen to buyers. I started selling on eBay 1999, by 2001 I was buying more than selling. didn’t sell on eBay for about six years apart from the occasional test, few sales and always low prices, eBay marketplace is crap. As mostly a buyer I networked with other buyers too, understood their concerns. Most expressed opinion = yeah it’s crap but it’s cheap! – still many gave up with eBay. Comprendé?
I sell on ebay, just list the junk, and the occasional overstocked quality item to demonstrate that we don’t just sell junk.
eBay is the muddy bootsale field in January, the current eBay management has no idea how to elevate it above that level other than suck up to big name retailers, who will just put their junk on eBay. Duh!
Any gifted coders on this board? (no chance), I could take a small percentage off eBlat, small in volume, massive in revenue, just like Apple does in the mobile phone biz!
Old Hand says
1:51 am on December 12th, 2010
Short answer to Chris:
View eBay as an advertising platform, advertisers expect leads from 2% – 5% of viewers if they are lucky, in that way eBay does good.
An auction house expect to sell 75% of items they offer, in that way eBay sux.
Why is it so poor? – eBay (Bain & Co aka Wall St banksters) management have one priority, divert all those dollars going to real people selling stuff they make in craft to mostly imported crap.
Corporatocracy – look it up.
BTW think about it, I can’t fit enough in to the attention span of most so it is condensed for brevity.
Chris says
12:47 am on December 13th, 2010
Thank you Old Hand. On the whole I agree with much of what you said. But I am not convinced that Cheap always equates with crap. Many of the items I sell are priced below £5. This is because a lot of specialist Books are priced below £5 when New, especially the ones that I sell which have been hiding in my store-room for years. I have browsed many categories since I first started on ebay. Much of the items are not that bad even at the lower price ranges. But even with items under £5 that are reasonably quality we find it impossible to sell one item per customer logged on. This is Christmas almost every family has an Uncle Charlie who is interested in something that is hard to find on the average High Street. An interest that can probably be satisfied by the Specialist Sellers on ebay such as myself. In my case Specialist Books. Yet we cannot even sell 1 item per customer logged on. I must admit that when I have been browsing on ebay I get frustrated by all the stupidities which seem to be designed to get potential buyers to give up. Remember that when these potential customer log on they are probably looking for something or perhaps an idea. Uncle Charlie. They have bought or know what they are going to buy for the rest of the family and friends but there is still Uncle Charlie. So they try ebay and while there are millions of items listed at often rock bottom prices we still cannot enable them to find what they want for Uncle Charlie. The question I am asking is WHY???
Chris says
9:30 am on December 14th, 2010
Talking about stupidities that cause buyers to give up. I received a very nice email from a customer saying how happy he was with the item I had sold him and the quick service. But when I checked he had not left feedback. A couple of days later he had still not left feedback. So I contacted him. He did not realise that there was a formal system to leave feedback-he thought it was just sending a email to the supplier. So I had to talk him through leaving feedback. Now to us who know the system we probably wonder how anybody can be on ebay and not know something like this. But many buyers are not experienced in the ways of ebay. When they find that the site has been counted out they do not realise that it is simple to get over. When they have to log on again in the middle of their browsing they can be put off. When all the various things drop down or flip up or whatever they do not know how to get rid of them. So they just give up. They may try again another day but any potential purchases that they might have made on the day that they gave up have been lost. We think that we know everything(although I must admit that I am still learning)but Mr Jones or Mrs Smith are not experts. If they get a problem when they are out on the High Street they just leave the shop and go next door. If they have a problem when they are on ebay they just log off and forget about it.
Chris says
11:24 am on 14/12/2010
Going back to the original posting. I spent a few minutes and compared my sales this Christmas with last Christmas. I am down in both volume and cash. The stock is essentially the same mix of items. Am I just unlucky?
snazal says
9:46 am on 27/12/2010
This does not look right here, I am down on eBay.co.uk by 80% – compared to this time last year. I have seen big increase on other sites. Is this true?
martin says
5:31 pm on 02/01/2011
Personally I just stopped selling on ebay over the Christmas, after they did not remove the shipping time DSR and the weather did not seem to be improving. Who needs to be blamed by the idiots for the delays.
I can say sales on ebid were going well so it was not that bad a loss to miss out on ebay sales and all the idiot ebay buyers.
But it is odd that all the things that were selling were low cost penny profit items. Videos and CDs
We have also been looking at listing a few items on ebay for the after Christmas sales that used to happen every year but I may just add those items to ebid, as there seems to be nothing happening on ebay.
Gerry007 says
7:47 pm on 02/01/2011
We just had an email from a buyer, thanking us for a replacement part, ‘that arrived today, NEW YEARS EVE’.
It was posted on 18th December.
Much Mail posted over the whole of December has still not arrived.
Ebay/Amazon/Ebid/Own website all the same if you use RM.
martin says
2:04 am on 03/01/2011
Yeah but if you sell someplace else then you are not going to have some idiot trying to close you down, as you would on ebay. They do seem to attract the buyer with less than normal IQ, that probably wondered what that white stuff outside the door was let alone why their parcels were delayed. So ebay should have removed the dispatch time DSR, as they know their buyers do tend to blame the seller rather than the weather or any other factor.
I had enough of dealing with the ebayer going through the strikes we have had in the past, with there “well my other item has turned up” during wild cat strikes, or the “what strike?” or “what bad weather?” As I said ebay should have removed that option especially after royal mail refused to even guarantee next day deliveries.
Gary says
11:38 am on January 3rd, 2011
Is eBay the only shopping site where buyers can close sellers down?
And further is eBay the only shopping site where buyers can directly affect seller overheads?