How Much Competition Is Too Much?

[pls-consignments]

For those of you who have wondered about competition, a key element in any retail environment, I thought you might find the following data interesting. It's no wonder why eBay is fixated on seller ad revenue. 

• eBay has 134 million active buyers worldwide in Q1 2025, a 1% YoY increment in account listings.
• eBay's active listings grew by 27.78% over the past two years, rising from 1.8 billion in 2022 to 2.3 billion in 2024.

https://www.chargeflow.io/blog/ebay-statistics#ebay-growth-statistics

[hartungcards]

"eBay's active listings grew by 27.78% over the past two years."

This is due to an annual increase in system activity experienced during this period, which has caused processing delays.

[johnrj1226]

1 too many

[iamalwaysright]

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@hartungcards wrote:

"eBay's active listings grew by 27.78% over the past two years."

This is due to an annual increase in system activity experienced during this period, which has caused processing delays.

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I should really start typing this reason to my complaining buyers.

[jdbelt1960]

I am not understanding if you are complaining or informing. Competition means growth on the platform and as far as ad revenue all online platforms depend on that. If EBAY did not grow or receive ad revenue they would be out of business.

[bdmh-enterprises]

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@pls-consignments wrote:

• eBay has 134 million active buyers worldwide in Q1 2025, a 1% YoY increment in account listings.
• eBay's active listings grew by 27.78% over the past two years, rising from 1.8 billion in 2022 to 2.3 billion in 2024.

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That's funny, 'cause I just scrolled by 4-5 posts saying eBay was dead/dying before getting here...

[valueaddedresource]

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@bdmh-enterprises wrote:

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@pls-consignments wrote:

• eBay has 134 million active buyers worldwide in Q1 2025, a 1% YoY increment in account listings.
• eBay's active listings grew by 27.78% over the past two years, rising from 1.8 billion in 2022 to 2.3 billion in 2024.

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That's funny, 'cause I just scrolled by 4-5 posts saying eBay was dead/dying before getting here...

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@bdmh-enterprises  as with many things involving statistics, a lot can depend on when and how you measure. 🙃

That 134M Active Buyers might represent 1% year over year growth but....it's still below the 141M Active Buyers they had in Q1 2018. In fact Q3 2025 was the 14th consecutive quarter where that was true.

[pls-consignments]

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@jdbelt1960 wrote:

I am not understanding if you are complaining or informing. Competition means growth on the platform and as far as ad revenue all online platforms depend on that. If EBAY did not grow or receive ad revenue they would be out of business.

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🤔 

Since this is the "Seller" board, the competition we're speaking about is with other sellers, not the platform itself. The no growth/no business formula applies to all business in general. However, competing with 28% more sellers for the same amount of buyers is a much different formula that's certainly worth discussing.

[gurlcat]

I have no competition.  😉

[jdbelt1960]

So are you suggesting other sellers drop out so you have less competition.

[pls-consignments]

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@jdbelt1960 wrote:

So are you suggesting other sellers drop out so you have less competition.

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Lol... I'm not "suggesting" anything, other than consider the question. I'm always interested in what other sellers have to say since we can learn from each other, especially from seasoned, experienced sellers who have lived through constant change. 

[tobaccocardyahoo]

I am not competing with all Ebay sellers. I am not even competing with all of the sellers who are listing in the categories I am selling in.

I am competing with a much smaller number of sellers in the niches I sell in, and I have better merchandise acquisition skills than most of my competitors and more experience in these niches.

I come to Ebay knowing what I want to sell here, unlike more than half of all Ebay sellers who are hunting for anything the can sell which will yield a profit.

Although Ebay is small compared to the big internet marketplaces, it is too large for the aggregate numbers to directly affect many of its sellers.

[krazzykats]

I stick to buying and selling only what I like.

I try not to chase every shiny object that comes my way, but it’s really hard sometimes....

ᓚᘏᗢ

[valueaddedresource]

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@pls-consignments wrote:

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@jdbelt1960 wrote:

I am not understanding if you are complaining or informing. Competition means growth on the platform and as far as ad revenue all online platforms depend on that. If EBAY did not grow or receive ad revenue they would be out of business.

---

🤔 

Since this is the "Seller" board, the competition we're speaking about is with other sellers, not the platform itself. The no growth/no business formula applies to all business in general. However, competing with 28% more sellers for the same amount of buyers is a much different formula that's certainly worth discussing.

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@pls-consignments  to be clear here,  the total number of active listings being up ~28% is not at all the same thing as "28% more sellers."

eBay has not reported the number of Active Sellers in 2021, where it had fallen from 20M in Q1 2021 to 17M in Q4 2021.

They have not publicly disclosed this statistic in earnings reports or anywhere else since then and any figures you may see for subsequent years across various places on the internet are only estimates.

FYI: I see the site you linked to in the OP got the info about the last time eBay reported Active Sellers wrong, which makes me wonder where else they may be showing incorrect or incomplete data.

Also, in order to assess what that 28% growth in active listings really means as far as competition, you'd have to have a breakdown of where that growth occurred - it's a statistical certainty that it isn't evenly distributed across all categories.

Just as a hypothetical - if the vast majority of that growth was in collectible trading cards, then sellers of clothing or auto parts would not be seeing a significant increase in competition from that growth.

Unfortunately, eBay does not provide such a breakdown, so I would caution anyone from reading too much into it or generalizing it too much.

[pls-consignments]

Thank you for disecting and vetting the data source in your impressive response, but not really necessary.

Of course, this doesn't mean that each of us as individual sellers are facing 28% more competition. However, what it does show is change in visibility, requiring greater effort (and cost) in order to be seen, thats all. 😉