Study: 1.5 Million Americans Supplement Income with eBay
In the first half of 2005, eBayers sold approximately US$10.6 billion worth of goods through the online auction service.
Check out the eBay press release here.
Some things to consider:
– The average sales per eBayer (all 1.5 million) in the first half of 2005 was US$7,067.
– Over half of eBay members use the online auction as a primary or secondary source of income.
– Less than 1 percent of U.S. Internet users are eBay members.
– eBay members outnumber Wal-Mart employees in the U.S. by 200,000 people.
Interesting things to ponder€¦ How many of these eBay members are not using traditional local media (newspaper classifieds, for instance) to advertise their products because they heavily depend on eBay? How many new businesses have formed to support eBay members or wannabees €" such as drop-off auction houses, shipping product distributors, eBay educators, etc.?
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The offline businesses developed to support eBay buyers and sellers are advertising their services, and real word storefronts, in traditional, print, local media, arguably providing new advertising dollars to local print publications. Measurement of the loss of local print classified advertising to eBay is not straightforward, however, as many individual eBay sellers never engaged in the activities they engage in at eBay, before eBay, and therefore were not advertising, locally or otherwise.