We’ve been tracking OnBuy‘s progress for a year as part of our 8 Top UK marketplaces ranked by traffic series. Since the summer there has been a marked uptick in traffic which suggests all their recent development work is starting to pay off and it might be worth considering listing on OnBuy in the run up to Christmas.
OnBuy Traffic February 2018
In February this year we wrote:
UK Rank: 16,255
Global Rank: 253,649
OnBuy who bill themselves as a “British marketplace” attract 82.3% of their traffic from the UK. Somewhat surprisingly they’re popular in the Netherlands where 13.8% of their traffic comes from according to Alexa – that’s a massive chunk and so particularly noteworthy.
It’s little surprise that OnBuy’s traffic is trending upwards as they are relatively new and encouraging to see.
OnBuy Traffic July 2018
Our report in July showed traffic had dipped during a period of intense development for OnBuy including their integration with PayPal.
UK Rank: 19,430
Global Rank: 334,359
OnBuy who bill themselves as a “British marketplace”, having jumped one place in Tamebay’s 8 Top UK marketplaces rankings, get 74.9% of their traffic from the UK with 7.3% attributed to the US.
Having seen the fledgling marketplace’s traffic rise steadily in their early growth period, it’s dipped very slightly in the past month so this is one to watch. We know that they have had considerable investment and have recently been announcing new multichannel management tool integrations and after the summer the Black Friday and Christmas period will be the true test of how their traffic grows.
OnBuy Traffic November 2018
UK Rank: 7,727
Global Rank: 210,231
Since early Summer, OnBuy’s traffic has risen sharply indicting that, whilst they are still relatively small compared to the giants, eBay and Amazon, and still small compared to Etsy and NotOntheHighStreet. However with traffic growing Black Friday and Christmas is the time that OnBuy have the best opportunity to capitalise on their growth.
Is it worth listing on OnBuy before Christmas?
Online retailers have a decision to make as to whether at this time of year they are too busy to consider taking on a new marketplace and if there are integrations available for the multichannel management software you use. You may decide that you are going to be operating at capacity in which case an additional marketplace at this time of year is an unnecessary distraction. However for those retailers who are looking to maximise on the holiday season and have the resources to integrate a new marketplace then OnBuy could be an option worth considering.
5 Responses
I think it depends what you sell.
If you sell naturally high traffic products and you can offer the lowest price, then I think you’ll see sales anywhere you sell, especially if that “site” is placing you into Google Shopping.
I think where eBay, Amazon and now Etsy to some degree come up trumps, is that they have the traffic volumes capable of allowing almost anybody to sell anything and make a small business out of it.
My opinion (maybe I’m wrong) is that OnBuy are unlikely (yet) to be suited to sellers who are not trading naturally high traffic products selling well known branded items.
OnBuy’s selling point has been lower fees that allow you to pass on those savings to your customers. They will want you to offer lower prices on OnBuy than you do on eBay or Amazon because they know the majority of their expected traffic will be price sensitive buyers who will be happy to save a few quid by buying on OnBuy instead.
Ebay.co.uk visits 358.96 million with average visit duration 8.43 secs
Onbuy visits 785,000 with average visit duration of 1.29 secs
47% of this is direct visits i.e., people visiting onbuy directly
16% is via referrals
31% through search returns
Site visits seem to have grown from approx 150,000 since May 2018
UK visits appear to be 85%, which means very few overseas visits / sales
So onbuy is growing, but its still not siginificant compared to Ebay or Amazon.
A fraction of one percent of ebay.co.uk traffic and very short visit duration indicates few people can find onbuy and they don’t hang around once they get there.
Take a peek at similarweb.com for independent info on site traffic for web pages.
We have seen a steady growth since we signed up with onBuy right at the start.
While the sales on there are growing our eBay sales are down 32.9% on last year and 15% in the last 31 days.
Amazon sales are up 27%.
So come on OnBuy keep it up and hopefully it will make them all start to take notice.
I registered us with Onbuy in February and sales were very slow until August. We had a very good (for onbuy) month in September and had 1 sale per day. The staff are very good, when I open a ticket or request a phone call they get back to me very quickly.
Unlike some other marketplaces,…………………..
I think it’s important to remember that Onbuy is NOT ebay or amazon. They are still fairly new and seem to be getting a foot in the door. You can’t simply be as big as the major players over night and so it’s pretty fair to say it will take them asome time to build and develop. What is encouraging is they are building and developing.
as has been said they are currently good for some seller and a no no for others. The key is to know which one you are.
We are going to be starting off on there very soon, with a selective range of our products to see how it goes. We already do alot on ebay so are not in need of large instant results. What we are looking for is a place that will grow and help lift some of our dependance on ebay which is trying to kill us!
Only time will tell if Onbuy can make it, and to what level.