posted on June 3, 2001 08:18:44 AM new
As promised, I wanted to post the results to the survey that was taken 2 weeks ago concerning eBay User IDs.
Here is the link to the basic data: http://www.auctionbytes.com/usersurvey/usersurvey.html Questions 6 & 8, as you will notice, do not add up to 100%, this is because it is the percentage of users who actually HAD multiple IDS, not the total number of people who took the survey.
If this data is applied to eBay's number of a "30 million user community", the number dwindles to 13-14 million.
Thanks to everyone who took the survey!
vidpro2
[ edited by vidpro2 on Jun 3, 2001 08:20 AM ]
posted on June 3, 2001 08:43:06 AM new
Thanks, VidPro. Those numbers are very interesting. It seems the number of actual users is much lower than eBay claims.
posted on June 3, 2001 11:46:35 AM new
Thanks, Twinsoft. Another interesting statistic is that 25% of the respondents have 1 or more IDs that haven't been used in the past year.
Not that registered users is the most important metric when determining eBay's growth rate - but it's one that eBay itself touts (saying they're the size of Texas) and it's not accurate.
A more reliable metric is eBay's GMS which from '98 to '99 was 194% and from 99' to 2000 was 78%. A significant drop, but still impressive.
posted on June 3, 2001 12:21:55 PM new
Hmmm. I didn't know about the survey, but I have two IDs on ebay. One I started as a buying account but seldom use. Only have 3 feedbacks on it. Neither ID is loosecannon.
13 or 14 million? Worldwide? That doesn't seem like a lot.
It's probably growing, but slowly. For every one or two new users that come to ebay, probably one leaves.
posted on June 3, 2001 12:38:58 PM new
I don't see anything about the total number of people who responded. What would that number be? Was that number conveniently left out or was it an oversight or did I just miss it? Without that number your totals are useless.
posted on June 3, 2001 12:53:39 PM new
The last time I looked at the web traffic reports of the top 100 sites I believe eBay recorded 27 million unique hits in December 2000.
posted on June 3, 2001 01:15:30 PM new
Media Metrix has recently reported "unique" visitors for eBay in the 15-19 million range per month. Don't forget that they "double count" too (but not to such a great extent as eBay does). Media Metrix will count you twice if you access from work & from home using different ISP's (the usual case).
I believe that the number of 13-14 million "unique" users is probably about right. I also agree that it's not growing all that rapidly.
Most of the eBay growth in user base is due to acquisitions (like adding all the Korea users when they bought that, just like they'll add in all the iBazar users for this coming quarter). The rest of the growth is existing users registering additional ID's. There is little "true" growth, as evidenced by the declining auction counts on the eBay USA site...
BTW, I have 5 user ID's myself 1 has been inactive since 1997 and has still not been removed by eBay...
BTW(2), I'm also interested to know how many people actually responded to the survey. Percentages are nice, but don't mean much if there were only 100 respondees out of the 29 million registered users...
posted on June 3, 2001 02:55:24 PM new
Doesn't eBay count as unique users every new IP address? If so, every time someone logs on with a dynamic IP (all modem users and many DSL users), eBay will see them as unique. Or, if the checking is done by cookie, then the office and home might not count as unique, if the same user id is contained in the cookie.
Anyway, the opportunities to overcount far outnumber the undercount opportunities - which makes good stuff for spin-meisters.
posted on June 6, 2001 06:17:50 AM new
Vidpro - Why do you refuse to answer my question regarding the number of people that responded to this survey? I see you started another thread today with more inane information. When you refuse to answer questions, it makes me question the validity of the information in addition to wondering what your agenda is.
posted on June 6, 2001 07:04:52 AM newBrooklynguy does it surprise you that many users have more than one ID? I certainly don't think that it comes as any surprise to most experiened sellers that there are many different reasons for having multiple IDs. EBay concedes that the number of 30 million users does not reflect active or unique users. As for the number of respondents, we opened this survey up to subscribers of our Newsletter, not the population of eBay at large, and received a 6% response rate (for direct mail, under 1% response rate is generally excellent) There was also an unknown response rate from people who found the survey here and in a few other message boards.
As for the other "inane" threads, we publish a newsletter and resource for online auction sellers and buyers. I suppose if you want to call that an agenda, so be it.
This type of information is useful to many users because it quantifies anectodal evidence AuctionBytes constantly gets from sellers that they are not realizing the prices on eBay that they were in the past. The other study was done by TIAS, not AuctionBytes, and encompassed over 18,000 auctions, which is a very strong sampling. This is not the type of information that eBay is inclined to share. Publications such as TagNotes and AuctionBytes publish information such as this because no one else seems inclined to do so.
posted on June 6, 2001 07:46:41 AM new
It doesn't suprise me whatsoever that subscribers to an AUCTION NEWSLETTER would have multiple Ebay ID's. I just don't think it's fair to take obviously skewed statistics and then trumpet them as some grand discovery. It's like taking a "How many people have a drinking problem" poll at an alcoholics anonymous meeting and based on those statistics coming to the conclusion that everyone in the country has a drinking problem.
posted on June 6, 2001 08:15:09 AM newBrooklynguy, why would subscribers to an Internet auction newsletter be more likely to have more than one eBay user ID than those who don't subscribe? I'm afraid I don't follow that logic at all. Enlighten us please?
1 has been inactive since 1997 and has still not been removed by eBay...