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

[valueaddedresource]

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@pls-consignments wrote:

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. 😉

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@pls-consignments  "what it does show is change in visibility, requiring greater effort (and cost) in order to be seen" - forgive me for belaboring the point, but I don't think it shows that (in such a generally sweeping way) at all.

Visibility for what? That matters - like I said, if the vast majority of that increase in Active Listings is in a few categories then it would not be fair to say that generally all or even most sellers are facing more competition requiring greater effort and cost to maintain visibility as a result.

Remember, visibility is not a zero sum game across the entire platform - it is highly category/what buyers are searching for specific.

If the category you primarily sell in has not seen a large increase in the number of Active Listings, then that specific statistic has little to no bearing on how much competition there is and the effort or cost involved to gain or maintain visibility in searches/browsing for those kinds of items, though of course there are many other factors that do.

And just because there may be more active listings, keep in mind that doesn't mean they're all good/competitive listings - there's always possibility they could make other existing listings look better by comparison. 😂

To be clear, I'm not saying that many sellers aren't facing more competition and greater costs to maintain visibility - just saying that Active Listing statistic isn't particularly useful to that analysis/discussion for multiple reasons, not the least of which is no category breakdown.

[krazzykats]

eBay added more Amazon drop shippers.

ᓚᘏᗢ

[tobaccocardyahoo]

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@krazzykats wrote:

eBay added more Amazon drop shippers.

ᓚᘏᗢ

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Amazon also has sellers who drop ship from Ebay sellers. It is a bidirectional problem, and the likelihood that an Amazon seller might be able to make money buying from an Ebay seller might be higher than the reverse if their buyer is not as brain dead as some Ebay buyers who overpay with regularity.

[meme6253]

The competition here is insane, Way too much, Look at big box competition is a handful of others , Here it's Millions of others, Making it very hard to compete!

[gurlcat]

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@meme6253 wrote:

The competition here is insane, Way too much, Look at big box competition is a handful of others , Here it's Millions of others, Making it very hard to compete!

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Only if you sell the kinds of things in big box stores. 

[gloryglorygifts]

Just because they are signed up for both marketplaces, does not mean that they are "dropshippers." I've sold on here, a website, Sears, Shop Where I Live at various times but usually at least 2 at the same time. Doesn't make me a dropshipper. It means I don't keep all my eggs in one basket.

[luckythewinner]

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@pls-consignments wrote:

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

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IMHO the most relevant statistic would be the dollar amount of buying (GMV) not the number of buyers. 

[pls-consignments]

Sure, relevant for eBay. Perhaps you can explain how GMV impacts you and I as individual sellers relative to 28% more active listings? Are you saying that such an increase is the result of recently motivated sellers listing more? Or does it equate to more domestic and international sellers? 

[luckythewinner]

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@pls-consignments wrote:

Sure, relevant for eBay. Perhaps you can explain how GMV impacts you and I as individual sellers relative to 28% more active listings? Are you saying that such an increase is the result of recently motivated sellers listing more? Or does it equate to more domestic and international sellers? 

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What I meant is that the growth in the number of BUYERS does not necessarily say anything about the growth of BUYING. And it is the growth in BUYING that matters to me. 

Let's say the the number of listings grew 28% and the number of buyers grew by 1%. 

• If the level of buying grew by 28%, that would be great. 
• But if the level of buying only grew by 1%, that would not be great. 

(Hint - the level of buying did not grow by 28%). 

[tobaccocardyahoo]

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@gloryglorygifts wrote:

Just because they are signed up for both marketplaces, does not mean that they are "dropshippers." I've sold on here, a website, Sears, Shop Where I Live at various times but usually at least 2 at the same time. Doesn't make me a dropshipper. It means I don't keep all my eggs in one basket.

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Amazon has many sellers who do not own their merchandise, and list items which are listed on Ebay, AbeBooks and Biblio and has them drop shipped from others. There are still Amazon sellers who scrape other sites for their listings, and have been for many years.

Shipping your Ebay orders in Amazon packaging, or your Amazon orders in Ebay packaging violates the rules of the site which has taken the order.

Any Ebay order which arrives in Amazon smile packaging is from an Ebay seller who is having an Amazon seller dropship. Amazon FBA sellers cannot order their own merchandise, Those who fulfill Ebay orders with their own inventory use a service in FBA called MCF (Multi-channel fulfillment) which ships in plain packaging/

[bashort]

its a item by item deal for me, when I look up something and I see 200 listed some for $7 with free shipping and 12 have sold in the last 3 years, that is to much competition for me and that item is either going in the scrap metal pile or garbage can. 

[pls-consignments]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@pls-consignments wrote:

Sure, relevant for eBay. Perhaps you can explain how GMV impacts you and I as individual sellers relative to 28% more active listings? Are you saying that such an increase is the result of recently motivated sellers listing more? Or does it equate to more domestic and international sellers? 

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What I meant is that the growth in the number of BUYERS does not necessarily say anything about the growth of BUYING. And it is the growth in BUYING that matters to me. 

Let's say the the number of listings grew 28% and the number of buyers grew by 1%. 

• If the level of buying grew by 28%, that would be great. 
• But if the level of buying only grew by 1%, that would not be great. 

(Hint - the level of buying did not grow by 28%). 

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So, since the level of buying is NOT commensurate with the increase of listings (up 28%) , do you still feel that this has more to do with GMV than with increased competition? 🤔