eBay has crunched its data, and is seeing a surge in new business registrations this month. While January has historically been the most popular month to start a business, the eBay for Business team are seeing a 30% bump in business registrations as aspiring entrepreneurs increasingly seek to diversify their income or become their own boss.
eBay also revealed that 75,000 businesses have started up via its mobile app alone in the UK over the past three years, indicating small businesses owners are getting evermore tech savvy.
The top 10 most successful new businesses that registered on eBay UK last year are now turning over nearly a combined £6 million through their eBay stores. This is an average of £600,000 per online business in its first year.
Petrol heads power an army of new businesses
The new car market in the UK dipped in 2018, potentially partially fueled by a legion of startups in the eBay Car Parts and Accessories industry, as drivers sought to repair their older models rather than buying a new vehicle.
Over a third (35%) of the top 20 new sellers on eBay over the past three years operate in the Cars and Car Accessories category, where buyers can purchase niche parts for specific car models. Home and Garden and Physical Media (such as vinyl) are the other most popular categories for most successful new firms.
Car parts also dominate the top 10 most popular products sold by new eBay businesses
2 Wall Decals & Stickers 3 Headlight Assemblies 4 Wing Mirrors & Accessories 5 Doors & Door Parts |
7 Seat Covers & Cushions 8 DVDs & Blu-rays 9 Window Motors, Winders & Parts 10 Wings & Quarter Panels |
Peak time for starting a new business
The peak time of the day for launching on eBay for Business is between 12-4pm, as aspiring entrepreneurs resolve to escape the office humdrum for the independence of running a business during lunch. Many have found success in making the switch.
“2017 was a fantastic year for our sellers, many of whom saw export growth, with countries like Australia, the US and France the lead destinations for UK goods on eBay. 2018 looks set to be even better with start-ups launching in droves this January – providing even more choice for savvy shoppers looking to find a unique product online. We are optimistic about the future for online retail, which is increasingly a story of changing customer demands and the nimble businesses that are able to adapt at pace.”
– Rob Hattrell, VP of eBay UK
7 Responses
Nice Generic Statement from Rob, forgetting that eBay have done nothing but promote “corporations and large retailers for the last year”. More Spin from Rob.
If their turnover is less than the very huge players on eBay they are going to have wasted an awful lot of time effort, (oh and money) as eBay only want your money as all metrics they measure you by and promote your products by, are set on the big boys standards with huge budgets, huge packing departments, huge IT departments and accounting techniques to offer returns for free regardless of how long you have had the item.
Which for them is all still massively cheaper than TV advertising to promote their business.
A tech savvy business certainly wouldn’t be doing alot on the ebay app…. it is quite simply awful. limited, glitchy and flawed. The amount of times i have had to come out of it to go through a browser to try and get the full site…. oh yes but then it constantly redirects you at random to the ebay mobile site which is even worse than the app!
From a company as big as Ebay… i would expect more… alot lot more.
Be really nice to see a headline stating what ebay is doing for its existing sellers and their needs for stability and progress on the many issues across the site that prevent them from growing at a pace they want too.. on a site that is robust, works correctly and is one we can rely on…. one we pay handsomely for
How many of these quoted top 20 sellers in the last three years are still with ebay?
How about listing the top twenty business platform issues known to affect sellers on ebay and mark how progress has been made of 12-36 months..
They like to take it up and about progress, how about looking at the progress made on solving the known problems that have…
Its like playing louder music on a sinking ship, its probably still going to sink unless someone reveals what is being done about the problems….
All this headline tells us “more people bought a ticket on the ship”… ..
It totally get it that the high street/physical premises isnt the alternative… BUT, for totally IT based business to be facing so many IT related issues they refuse to awknowledge or advise on work in progress to fix.. is cronic..
This CEO will have is exit strategy planned, just before he gets found out and when issues on the platform prevent it from supporting users..
Always about buyers, always about buying ebay services that generate them a commission..
The terapeak purchase will be rolled out soon in the seller overview, pushing all to subscribe to get more insight into their sales/growth recomendation (currently crap and does not work).. to sum up; another income opportunity pushed out to sellers..
How about just fixing a few of the IT issues sellers face ebay, how about it?
Amazing this corp doesnt get it, the massive retailers add nothing to the economy; must are bust just recycling bank cash for 1% margin to stay afloat… and ebay skim the commissions.. the real value in the economy is the smaller businesses…. hundreds and thousands of them…
Imagine solving some of the IT issues, announcing it and saying how good ebay is for sellers.. and charging £5 pm more.. multiply that by a few hundred thousand seller accounts Mr CEO and its your 2018 targets hit and business achieved.. and you will be able to write you Xmas message in Q3 and have a longer break this year…
At present the ongoing service issues are being peddled to a growing number of businesses..
how many succeed without avoiding the race to the bottom?
how many stick around…?
how many would stick around if there was an alternative?
Mr CEO knows the last point is the most relevant.. his exit strategy encompasses this..
I find it astounding that sellers above do not recognise the initiatives ebay are taking for smaller sellers.
The Concierge programme has been a breath of fresh air and they are looking at rolling it out to more sellers.
I noticed my items pop in in Google shopping the other day – obviously paid for by ebay. New initiatives are in play to bring payment processing fees down for smaller sellers.
That along with other improvements on the platform how can you have a negative assessment of this.
A good post by Chris and an accurate statement by Rob.