Gary has run some rough figures based on an item selling on a mobile device every second. Mobile accounts for 10% of eBay UK sales, so that works out to around 864,000 total sales a day, or 1 sale per day for every 6.5 of eBay’s 17 million unique monthly visitors to eBay.

There are only three ways eBay can grow and the most obvious two are to increase the number of sales per user and secondly to grow the number of users.

Growing eBay UK Users

eBay have 17 million unique visitors each month, but there are only just over 60 million people in the UK. Roughly 20% of the UK population are below the age of 16 so that gives us a total available eBay user base of 48 million to work with.

There is a small but significant part of the population, like my dear mother, who simply don’t and won’t use the Internet for anything. No matter how much I offer to set her up with a free laptop and Internet connection she’s just not interested.

Many families share an eBay account and eBay can’t easily distinguish between a husband and wife logging into the same account on the same computer. I also know many families with children over the age of 16 who still use their parents eBay accounts rather than their own. You can probably divide the 48 million available users in half to get a reasonably accurate estimate of 24 million as the total potential monthly users for eBay.

Now that we’re down to about 24 million potential users, eBay’s 17 million unique visitors per month starts to look close to saturation point. There simply aren’t that many more available users in the UK to log on to eBay as 70% of the available population already do.

Growing eBay Sales

This is the one area that eBay have been focussing on for the past five years. This is the reason it was so important to stop upsetting buyers by allowing sellers to leave them negative feedback. This is the reason that eBay created Top Rated Sellers and attempted to guide buyers to sellers who provide great service.

eBay simply can’t afford to have unhappy buyers and do and must continue to ensure every sale on eBay results in a happy buying experience. This is also why they run programs to reactivate dormant buyers with mailings and discounts from time to time. There could be as many dormant eBay buyers out there then there are potential brand new buyers to the site!

There are still a number of buyers out there who don’t buy on eBay, often consumers who buy on Amazon do so exclusively and won’t touch eBay. This is why eBay have been focussing so heavily on Outlets and Daily Deals to attract the few non-eBay customers out there to the site to make their first purchase. Once a new buyer has made their first purchase they’ll often go on to buy from other non-outlet eBay sellers but the potential numbers of new customers are still limited compared to the 17 million already using eBay.

Cross Border Trade

The final way for eBay UK to grow is to look outside the UK. Cross border trader gives access to a new pool of potential customers and this is more important to the UK than to any other eBay territory in the world.

The two biggest eBay countries – the US and Germany – still have plenty of room to grow to catch up with eBay UK’s market penetration. The UK market is saturated through so to continue growth selling overseas is the only way to increase sales.

eBay are likely to continue efforts to encourage sellers to list with overseas shipping and to display UK listings on sites like eBay.com, eBay Germany and eBay Australia. By supplying UK located products into countries where there is a shortage of inventory in certain categories they can continue to increase demand for sellers.

Switch from offline to online retail

There is still room for online retail as a whole to grow within the UK. Internet sales for January 2012 were about 11.9% of all retail sales, that’s an increase from around 8.9% of all retail sales in January 2011. The general switch by consumers from offline to online should assist eBay in growing sales, but this in itself won’t be sufficient to deliver the growth figures they and sellers need.

Technology enabling buyers to buy anywhere on any device and the blurring of online and offline commerce will grow online sales and this is why eBay are investing so heavily in solutions for the future.

How can eBay UK grow users and sales?

eBay need to hold on to every buyer they have, they need to attract the relatively small proportion of the population who don’t already use eBay and they need to increase cross border trade. eBay will grow as online commerce grows, but their aim has to be to grow faster then eCommerce as a whole.

Currently they are succeeding, but this task will become harder and harder in the future and ultimately cross border trade offers the biggest potential to keep online traders happily selling on eBay.

Disclaimer: All of the figures used in this article are best estimates unless otherwise indicated and should not be relied on for accuracy

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The completed listings page still has an overview of key details related to the listings that has ended, though now the Item Specifics and Seller Description are split from the header information and are towards the bottom of the page.

In the middle of the page are links to alternative listings from the same seller, similar items from other sellers and sponsored listings.

Importantly right at the top of the page above the product image is a link to see the original listing so if a buyer does want to refer to the page they purchased the item from they still can.

Depending how the testing goes this page might become the default completed item page on eBay so it’s worth taking a look to see what your buyers will be seeing.

Our TameBay eBay account hasn’t been used for buying for a couple of years but eBay haven’t given up on us – they’ve just sent us a 10% off voucher for anything between a £40 and £100 purchase on eBay.

Rather annoyingly I just purchased a USB 1 Terabyte Hard Drive for £64.99 from the weekly deals yesterday – if the voucher had been 12 hours earlier TameBay could have saved me £6.50 (grrr ).

It is good to know that eBay are tapping up dormant accounts to get them spending though. The UK is one of the most highly penetrated eBay markets in the world and there are only so many new buyers that they can bring to the site. Getting dormant buyers returning to the site and spending again is almost more important (and probably cheaper!) than recruiting a brand new buyer.

Did anyone else get a voucher? If so what did you spend yours on?

This is how eBay has worked for years, but the complainant asserts that the buyer’s highest bid should be placed immediately and not to do so is stealing from the seller. They think that the seller should automatically have a bid placed for as much as a buyer is willing to pay, not as much as they need to pay to be the highest bidder.

To me this is daft, the chances are that without automatic bidding buyers would bid the minimum bid increment and auctions would end up with much lower final selling prices. Buyers would also have to be sat at their computer screens in the dying seconds of an auction to place their bid and would then have no time to increase their bid before the auction ended.

Perhaps buyers would place higher bids, but I don’t believe many would be willing to bid the maximum they’re willing to pay in the knowledge that they might be able to secure the item at a lower price.

Apart from the culture of litigation in the US I see little merit in this case. Sellers and buyers alike know the rules by which eBay auctions are run, so to participate in them and then sue eBay because you don’t like the rules is bizarre. If you don’t like the way eBay run the site and the rules for bidders why would you offer items for sale in the first place?

In fact, the Get Safe online report published at the beginning of November showed that a staggering 51% of the UK population has been a victim of cybercrime in their lifetime. That said, many online fraud schemes follow a typical pattern, so if one knows what to look for, scams can be avoided.

Here are uShip’s top 5 tips to safe online buying this season

1. Seller in sheep’s clothing. Firstly, scammers pretend to be legitimate sellers, advertise items through online classifieds sites like Facebook and free-ad sites, advertising an item that is particularly desirable at a very low cost, sometimes even free. This bargain price tends to make people act before they think things through properly.
2. Read the fine print. If the person selling to you purports to be from a legitimate company, then check that the email address that you are receiving emails from is the proper corporate email account. Visit the website, and check that the details match, for example, does the head office address match? If there is a phone number call it, and verify the details of the transaction – no legitimate seller will ever have an issue with this.
3. Moneygram, moneyscam. Scammers will usually ask for payment in a non-typical payment manner. In the UK we are all used to paying cash on collection for items bought through classified sites, or perhaps we’ll use PayPal or maybe even cheque. Scammers and fraudsters tend to ask for money to be paid to them via Moneygram, or Western Union – something that hides their proper identity.
4. Pet unfriendly. Sadly, there are very few legitimate companies selling items in the UK that are based in Cameroon. So, if you see a Camaroon address your alarm bells should start ringing instantly, especially if they are selling pets.
5. Seek answers, use logic. And finally, take a few minutes to apply the same thought and consideration to an online transaction as you would an offline transaction. If you feel that something isn’t quite right stop and think, ask a few questions, apply a bit of common sense and logic and ask yourself if this is the way that people normally behave.

uShip’s Safe Shipping Guide contains lots more information about staying safe online, and with particular advice and information about buying and selling items over the internet and having courier deliveries. So when you’re hunting for your online bargains this year take a few minutes out to think about the seller and check the details – Stay safe online this Christmas.

The introduction of catalogues in May 2011 makes searching for specific items easier for buyers and helps sellers to save time when creating and adapting product listings. The main advantages are

• To provide buyers with a positive shopping experience: The eBay catalogue provides buyers with a user friendly way to find specific electronic products both quickly and easily
• Help to maintain and drive sales: Sellers need to ensure they always list an item against a matching product where one exists, to avoid listings being removed. Start preparing today by listing and relisting relevant products to avoid losing out on potential sales
• Save time: Sellers can now save time spent on listing items by taking advantage of the pre-filled product information and stock photos when matching to the eBay catalogue
• Increased visibility: The best deals from Top rated sellers will prominently appear at the top of the product page, with best offers from other sellers showing below

The new categories where sellers should list against the eBay catalogue are: Apple Laptops; Apple Desktops; iPads, Tablets & eReaders; Printers; Routers; Hard Drives; Monitors and Televisions.

This does create some dilemmas though. Firstly what do you do when your item doesn’t match the catalogue information and secondly what do you do if the catalogue information for your item is incomplete or worse the catalogue data is incorrect?

Listing if your item is not in the catalogue

If your item simply isn’t in the catalogue you can select the “Continue listing without a product” link and list the item as you normally would.

Listing if your item is not an exact match with the catalogue

If the catalogue information isn’t an exact match for your item the situation is unclear. I sell printers and often there are several different models available, e.g. an HP 4000 printer, an HP 4000N (with a network card), an HP 4000TN (with a network card and extra paper tray), and an HP 4000DTN (with a network card an extra paper tray and a duplex unit). Suppose I have a 4000DTN but it’s missing it’s duplex unit and the extra tray (which isn’t an unusual situation) – should I list it as a 4000N even though the product code on the printer is DTN, or should I list as a 4000DTN and hope the buyer reads the description to find that some parts are missing? This is a call that each seller will have to make on a case by case basis.

Listing when the catalogue data is incorrect

The worst situation are the many instances where the catalogue information is simply wrong. For example the eBay Catalogue Information for the HP LaserJet Mono 4000TN printer has the description for an HP LaserJet Colour 4500 Printer! One would have to excuse a buyer who thought that they were purchasing a colour printer if you listed against this catalogue data.

If the catalogue data is incorrect you have two choices – list without catalogue data and there is a chance your listing could be ended, or list with the incorrect data and call out the errors in your listing description. It is also worth highlighting the errors to eBay support so that they can be corrected.

Should sellers be able to edit catalogue data?

Is it time for eBay to open up the catalogue data to allow users to correct misleading or incorrect information? Would you like the ability to edit catalogue information or to add new entries to the catalogue data? What would happen if you listed against catalogue data which another seller subsequently edited?

How will you handle instances where your product isn’t an exact match or where the catalogue data is incorrect?

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In search results you’ll see a blue arrow when you mouse over a listing and clicking anywhere in the item information (apart from title or picture) will open up a sidebar showing gallery images, pricing, seller details and in some instances a Buy It Now button.

I have to say with a few reservations I like this new Preview Pane. When I’m buying consumables like printer toner or jiffy bags I don’t necessarily need to see the View Item page. I don’t need to read reams of information that the seller may feel important such as about their company or their detailed terms and conditions of trading – I just want to buy the product and get on with my day.

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Buyers may choose not to purchase from the search results page and so this may never roll out site wide in it’s current format. However it will still be useful as eBay can display information buyers often visit the View Item page for such as Item Location and Seller Feedback. These details can be displayed in the Preview Pane enabling buyers to rule out a particular search result or decide that the product is indeed worth further consideration.

The new feature will also alter the basic search results page layout. The information will no longer be presented in columns, but details such as Price, Bids, Postage and the Top Rated Seller icon will appear in a triangle beneath the item title.

There are some interesting considerations for sellers for example eBay gallery pictures will be displayed in the Preview Pane. In Clothes Shoes & Accessories up to 12 gallery images are free, but there’s a charge for gallery images in other categories. Many sellers have a sidebar embedded on the left hand side of their product descriptions or large headers, sellers will need to evaluate their usefulness compared to having item information prominently displayed in the Search Results Preview Pane.

The tests will run for several weeks while eBay evaluate the results. Whilst you can’t opt in or out of the test if your account is included in the tests you’ll be able to give feedback comments from a link in the Preview Pane.

Don’t wait to give eBay feedback though, tell us what you think in comments below – Will you purchase direct from the search results page and do you want your buyers to have the ability to do the same?

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.

All you have to do is tap in your item along with it’s make, model and condition to receive an instant cash offer for your unwanted item. Rather than leaving it sitting in a draw gathering dust. If you accept the offer you can print out a shipping label and as soon as your item is received you’ll get the money in your PayPal account.

Beware though, this really is for the ultra lazy – I decided to check out an old iPhone 2G 4Gb in good condition with a charger and the offer price was $50.00. A similar iPhone listed on eBay with a start price of $50.00 currently has bids of $112.50 with seven hours left to go before the auction finishes.

Of course eBay Instant Sale gets rid of the worries about unpaid items and you don’t have the bother of creating a listing, but if you want the real money that your item is worth sell it on eBay, use Instant Sale as a guide to what a business would pay for your item. A business expects to make a profit so use the offer as a start price guide for selling it on eBay.

eBay Instant Sale isn’t for everyone, in fact it’s for the lazy buyer who would prefer a simple environmentally friendly way to recycle their unwanted consumer electronics and receive a token payment along the way. However if it frees up some cash in PayPal accounts which buyers can then re-spend on eBay I’m in favour of encouraging people to dig out their old unwanted items and turn them into instant cash.

As you go through the process a sliding sidebar showing your order total is on the right hand side of the page with contact details for the seller should you run into any problems.

I spoke to Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor to ask the question why hasn’t the checkout been updated in the past? He told me this is something ChannelAdvisor have been looking at for over two years since eBay first indicated that 3rd party checkouts would be abolished. Due to uncertainty, making changes to the ChannelAdvisor checkout wouldn’t have make sense and this was proved correct when eBay delayed and changed their mind over the future of third party checkouts on eBay.

Since then eBay have announced the final retirement date for third party checkouts and with more fixed price items than ever on eBay there are more opportunities for combined shipping. ChannelAdvisor decided that for the 2010 holiday shopping season they wanted to give their customers the best checkout experience available on the Internet.

The developments won’t be wasted when eBay retire third party checkout, the technology behind the one page checkout will be used in a variety of products including the ChannelAdvisor webstore platform in the future.

The other question I had to ask Scot is why keep the third party checkout at all? The reason is that eBay still don’t provide functionality that many sellers need and has been added over the years. eBay have committed to building the checkout features that sellers use into the eBay platform before 3rd party checkouts disappear for good in June 2011.

Functionality still missing from eBay that can be provided by a 3rd party checkout include:

• Tax/VAT calculations – This is essential in the US where sales tax varies by State and even for the UK where VAT is chargeable for EU sales but not for the rest of the world. Also VAT may or may not be chargeable on shipping depending on the product(s) purchased. Sellers need the flexibility to charge VAT/sales tax correctly.
• Shipping capabilities – Sellers want to be able to offer different shipping methods based on multiple purchases to offer buyers the best service available.
• Promotions – Offering discount coupons, free shipping, buy two get one free and combining orders just isn’t easily available on eBay but sellers still want to offer incentives to buyers to increase order size.
• Shipping and tracking – eBay are pretty much exclusive with UPS/USPS in the US and Royal Mail in the UK. Sellers want flexibility to ship with Fedex, Interlink, Citylink and other carriers and to inform buyers at checkout which carrier will deliver their item as well as providing tracking numbers to customers.
• Payment options – eBay allow a variety of payment options including the sellers own merchant credit card processing, but they don’t provide the ability on eBay to do this.

Whilst I’ve never been a fan of 3rd party checkouts, I’ve bought a couple of items from ChannelAdvisor customers recently and I have to admit that the checkout flow is a vast improvement. On past experiences where I’ve had up to seven pages to click through to complete a purchase but now it’s simple, straightforward and, unless you want to change any details, it’s pretty much a four click process.

Changing delivery address in ChannelAdvisors checkout is easier than it is on eBay (an improvement eBay could make immediately is to make the “Change” link much more prominent to encourage buyers to enter the delivery address that they want rather than email the seller to request a different delivery address).

The list of features that eBay need to build into checkout before June next year is extensive, but it needs to be completed to ensure that it’s a world class platform and to enable sellers to provide the best checkout experience on the Internet.

Disclosure: ChannelAdvisor advertise with TameBay