eBay - 35 Interesting Stats and Facts

Ever since the dawn of the internet, people have sought to buy and sell things over it. To facilitate this need, Pierre Omidyar decided to create one of the most iconic websites of all time. What started off as a replacement to auction forums online, with a simple yellow and white interface, has become a multi-billion dollar company and is one of the biggest online marketplaces.

Anyone who has been on the internet in the past 25 years knows about eBay and its uncanny knack for bringing together collectors of weird items, and the people who want to sell to them. Here we will look at the bizarre side of eBay, selling everything from stuffed heads to literal bags of poop. Then prepare to feel really nervous about your bank balance as we take a look at the most expensive items ever sold on eBay. Then we’ll finish off with a look at some facts and statistics about eBay that you may not have known.

Quick Facts

eBay was initially called AuctionWeb but had to change to eBay due to domain unavailability.
eBay has supported over 35,000 charities to date.
71% of all eBay items are shipped for free.
Unlike its reputation of an auction site, 80% of all items sold on eBay are new.
eBay is the 2^nd most-preferred online marketplace, after Amazon.

Weird Stuff

The reputation that eBay has built for itself over the years mainly comes from the number of weird things that get sold for weirdly large sums of money. Search the terms “weird and eBay” together, and you will be greeted with a deluge of search results. This has gotten to the point that eBay has 4 different categories for weird things. Here we’ll explore some of the weirdest examples of sales made on eBay.

1. A 10-year-old girl from Essex tried selling her grandmother on eBay:

Let’s start the list with some light-hearted human trafficking of the elderly. A 10-year-old girl, Zoe Pemberton, decided to sell off her grandmother, Marion Goodall, on eBay. She described her grandma, thusly, “She is annoying but very cuddly.” The grandma was said to be on-board the joke listing. Zoe went on to say that her grandma loved crosswords and long walks. However, when the campaign gained too much public attention, it was removed from the website due to being in violation of its rules on human trafficking. The eBay spokesperson stated to the Independent that they were aware of the act that this was a joke and that it was done in good fun, which they found hilarious as well. Even so, rule violations are rule violations.

(Source: Independent)

2. A Cheetos Shaped like a urinating man, but without hands, unfortunately:

Cheetos are one of god’s perfect snacks. Sometimes these snacks can take many shapes, from a crooked stick to a broken branch. For one lucky man, the Cheetos he was eating gave him one that was shaped like a man that was urinating, sans his hands. The Cheetos amused him so much that he placed the Cheetos on eBay with a starting bid of £0.99. However, the Cheetos quickly caught the fancy of the internet and was finally sold for nearly £1,911! It was purchased by a man that claimed he desired it because of its internet fame.

(Source: 9Gag)

3. VHS Copy of Beauty and the Beast was sold for over 10,000 dollars:

After the release of an article in 2015 in The Independent about how VHS copies of the early 90s Disney’s classics, especially the movie Beauty and the Beast. This sparked a lot of activity on the internet where a lot of people wen through their attic to see if they had a copy of their favorite childhood movies. However, the first person who discovered their Beauty and the Beast copy, it was in massive demand. This copy was sold for nearly 11,000 dollars. However, some people have stated that this was likely due the internet’s propensity to blow things out of proportion and people getting lured by the attractive idea that their attic might have something worth thousands of dollars. Most experts have stated that the copy would have been worth a maximum of merely 400 dollars without the Independent article.

(Source: GQ)

4. The entire life of Ian Usher was sold on eBay for $389,712:

This entry on the list comes with a sizable price tag and a very fascinating story. The story begins with a young man by the name of Ian Usher. In 2008, Ian’s wife left him after being together for years, taking all her belongings. Ian could have just put the rest of her stuff on eBay, earned some extra money, and move on. However, Ian decided he needed a completely fresh start. To this end, he decided to put his entire life up for sale on eBay. This auction included everything he owned, including his house, his car, his parachuting equipment, his jet ski, a recommendation at his job, and a meet and greet with all his friends. The auction quickly gained the fancy of the internet, with bids flowing in quickly to take over the life of Ian Usher. The winning bid was made for 389,172 dollars, which was a little disappointing to him, though he has since found immense success. Usher went on a trip around the world when he endeavored to complete 100 new experiences in 100 weeks. He even found love again! He then bought an island off of the coast of Panama, where he lived off-grid for 4 years before selling the island and moving back to the cityscape. He now works as a motivational speaker and has published a book as well.

(Source: Ian Usher)

5. A grilled cheese sandwich with the face of the Virgin Mary blessed upon the face of the bread:

Grilled cheese is truly the food of the gods themselves. However, this wasn’t anymore literal than this particular grilled cheese sandwich. This grilled cheese, made by a woman in the year 1994, who decided to sell it off in the year 2004. The women mentioned that the mold hadn’t grown on it in the 10 years that she had the sandwich. The GoldenPalace.com stated that they wanted to place the winning bid on it, no matter what it took. In the end, they ended up shelling out nearly 28,000 dollars for the sandwich, adding to their collection of other internet cultural objects.

(Source: NBC News)

6. Superstar Scarlett Johnson sells her snotty tissue for charity:

Scarlett Johnson is one of the most successful actresses on the planet. She has appeared in a large number of movies and famously plays the role of Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Once, while promoting her movie, “The Spirit”, on NBC Today, she stated that she caught a cold from her co-star Samuel Jackson and then blew her nose into a tissue that the host, Jay Leno handed to her. The crowd coaxed her into putting the tissue on auction on eBay, and she did in fact put the tissue on eBay and announced that the money would go to a charity working for providing food to the unfortunate classes of society. The bids ended with the highest bid going for 2,050 dollars.

(Source: Today)

7. Someone sold Britney Spears’s used chewing gum on eBay:

Britney Spears has had an eventful life, to say the least. She famously shaved her entire head. The barber who did the deed decided to save all her hair and sold it off, with some lock even going for as much as 1 million dollars. The hair can be an entry on this list by itself. However, we will focus on something even weirder for our Britney Spears segment of the list. A fan, while walking backstage, saw Britney spit out a wad of gum. The fan, naturally, picked up the wad and took it home to show their friends. After the fan’s friends pointed out the fact that they could probably sell the gum on eBay for a pretty sum of money. The bids started flowing in quickly, with the winning bidder taking the gum home for the simple sum of 14,000 dollars. This is an outlier, as other Britney Spears wad of gums usually sell for around 100 dollars.

(Source: People)

8. Princess Beatrice’s hat sold by eBay auction for £81,100.01 to raise money for charity:

Princess Beatrice is the youngest sibling in the Royal Family of England. During the royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton, she wore a pink dress which she adorned with a hat. This hat was shaped like a bow, which reminded everyone on the internet of a pretzel or a Turkey Twizzler or even a toilet seat. There was also a Facebook page created in its honor. Princess Beatrice’s hat was sold on eBay for nearly 81,100.01 pounds sterling, which is almost 105,405 dollars. The proceeds from the auction were donated to various charities around London, mainly those helping the people living under the poverty line.

(Source: BBC)

9. Air from a Kanye West concert was sold for more than 65,000 dollars:

Kanye West arguably loosely fits the definition of a musician. He had a concert for his “music” called the 2013-14 Yeezus tour. Fans from the concert allegedly trapped air from the concert into plastic bags and put them on sale on eBay. In true internet fashion, for some reason, the bags saw a lot of demand, with the first one being auctioned for nearly 65,000 dollars! Kim Kardashian, Kanye’s wife, tweeted about the sale, saying, “Wow, he can truly sell anything.” The other bags subsequently sold for an average amount of around 15,000 dollars. The sellers tried to repeat the success of the bags by bagging air from other Kanye events as well but unfortunately couldn’t manage to achieve their previous levels of fame. These bags sold for 100 dollars to up to 1500 dollars.

(Source: Daily Mail)

10. SnoreStop bought advertisement space on a man’s forehead:

In 2005, Andrew Fischer of Nebraska announced an auction on eBay to sell advertisement space on his forehead. He would tattoo the name and slogan of the company that bid the most money for an entire month. Melody de Rivel thought it would be the perfect idea for an advertisement for SnoreStop, her family-run business. She outbid every other person bidding on Andrew’s head, eventually paying him nearly 37,750 dollars to get him to tattoo the name of SnoreStop along with the slogan “It just works.” Andrew went through the temporary tattooing process and went around with his forehead proclaiming to the world that SnoreStop just works.

(Source: Business Wire)

11. The right to name an unborn child got auctioned off on eBay, but the situation ended happily:

In Arkansas, an unemployed mother of six children got pregnant again and realized that she wouldn’t be able to support all of them financially. Obviously. However, instead of investing in family management, she decided to put the right to name her son. The winning bidder bid nearly 6,800 dollars for the honor but refused to utilize the naming right. The bidder just donated the money to the mother out of the goodness of her heart.

(Source: Fox News)

12. James Blunt sold his sister to her future husband over eBay:

James Blunt might be a very successful person, but even with all his resources, he couldn’t get his sister to Ireland when she wanted to attend a funeral there. The planes were on strike, trained weren’t running, and the ferry service had been suspended. So, James Blunt decided to put his sister up on eBay, stating that “A damsel in distress needs a knight in shining armor to escort her to Ireland.” A gentleman took up the offer and flew her to Ireland on his helicopter. She was so enamored by her knight that they eventually ended up marrying each other!

(Source: Daily Mail)

13. A girl tried to sell her virginity on eBay, twice!:

One of the most controversial auctions that ever took place on eBay was when a Brazilian girl decided to auction her virginity on eBay right after her 18^th birthday. The auction became very popular on the internet, sparking a huge meme war, and an even bigger auction war. The bids quickly surpassed the half a million-dollar mark, and finally was won by a 53-year-old Japanese business-man, who bid a cool 780 thousand dollars for the opportunity to, eh hmm, take her on a date. However, when the two met up, it turned out that the man was in fact a 21-year-old American millionaire. The girl obviously called off the date and returned the money. She then went on to become a model for Playboy Brazil but maintained that she was still a virgin when she tried to auction it off again. However, this time eBay shut the suction down very quickly, even adding a “No auctioning off virginity” rule in the terms and conditions of their website.

(Source: Gawker)

Bonus Fact: A man tried to sell a fully functioning F/A – 18 Hornet fighter jet on eBay in 2006. He obtained the plane from a scrapyard and stated in the sale description that the plane would sell for a minimum of 9 million dollars. McDonnell Douglas sells these jets for 28 million each. The jet would then cost a further 1 million dollars to restore to flight condition and then require an additional 40,000 dollars per month to maintain and then would only fly for around 2-3 hours a month. While he did receive some bids for the plane, he didn’t find a serious buyer, and in the end, did not make the sale via eBay. It is not known if the deal was made over any other platform, thought the rules that the US Government had imposed on the transaction were stringent.

Expensive Stuff

Given eBay’s position as the largest online auction website, it is not a surprise that the site has seen some extremely expensive auctions. Some of the most expensive items for sale on eBay tend to be high-end sports cars, especially Lamborghinis, which tend to be sold for nearly 500,000 to 700,000 dollars. However, these cars don’t come close to any of the items on the list. The items on this list contain some unusual items being sold for a large amount of money. Let’s start of the list with the most expensive thing to ever be auctioned off on eBay.

14. The most expensive item ever sold on eBay was a giant yacht which was sold for 168 million dollars:

The most expensive thing that was ever sold on eBay was a giant 405 – feet long yacht designed by naval architect Frank Mulder. The marine craft is the first word in luxury and opulence, costing hundreds of million dollars for the huge number of features it contains. The yacht hosts a Jetstream swimming pool, eight guest cabins a spa, 10 multilevel VIP suites, office areas, a gym, a children’s cabin, a retractable glass elevator, a helicopter pad, movie theater and a 3,000 sq. feet master suite on the deck. There is literally nothing that is not on the marine craft. There is even the capability of launching a submarine via a dry dock. The Florida – based 4Yacht brokerage firm ratified the transaction. The manufacturers sell the Giga Yacht for the price of 196.5 million dollars, so the buyer saved a lot of money on the sale. The buyer in question was a Russian Billionaire Roman Abramovich, who is an oil magnate with business ventures in the UK. Abramovich collects luxury yachts as a hobby, yes as a hobby, no, we are not kidding, which was his reason was purchasing the costly marine craft.

(Source: eBay)

15. A luxury Gulfstream II jet plane got auctioned for $4.9 million:

Jet planes are extremely expensive, with prices ranging from 3 million to even 90 million dollars. A Gulfstream GII jet plane usually retails for around 7.8 million dollars when they are brand new, and usually tend to be the most preferred jet plane for wealthy individuals looking to buy a private plane. A used Gulfstream GII jet plane showed up on eBay, which sparked a bidding war between people seeking a private plane and private charter companies. The auction finally ended with an Africa – based charter company buying the plane for 4.9 million dollars.

(Source: Aviation Week)

16. 20th Annual Power Lunch with Warren Buffett to Benefit GLIDE was auctioned for 4.5 million:

Warren Buffet is one of the wealthiest people in the world, currently being the third richest person in the world, after Jeff Bezos and Bill gates. He is also one of the most charitable people in the world as well, regularly donating millions to charities. He earned his money with smart investments in the right industries at the right time and hence is a very busy man. His time is at a very high premium. This premium, in fact, has been known for 20 years. The most recent edition of the Annual Power Lunch with Warren Buffet for GLIDE was bid for 4,567,889 dollars, the entire amount going to the charity GLIDE, which address the needs of, and advocates for, the most vulnerable and marginalized individual and families in San Francisco. The 19^th Annual Power Lunch with Warren Buffet cost 3.3 million dollars, climbing from the previous year as well.

(Source: Glide)

17. The most expensive comic book ever sold in the world was the Action Comics #1, which auctioned off for 3.2 million dollars:

Superman is probably the most recognizable superhero in the world. The red and blue ‘S’ hope symbol can be found everywhere, from T-Shirts to mugs and obviously comic books. The hero first made his appearance on the cover of the Action Comics #1. The comic was first released in 1938 and was sold on newspaper stands for just 10 cents, which is equivalent to 1.06 dollars today. However, if you try to sell one of these comics today, you might earn more than a few million dollars! The most expensive comic ever sold was a CGC 9.0 rated Action Comics #1, which was sold to a private collector in 2014 for a giant sum of 3.2 million dollars.

(Source: Wealthy Gorilla)

18. A letter on God and philosophy written by the genius Albert Einstein’s was sold for 3 Million dollars:

Albert Einstein was a German scientist and is renowned for many reasons, from his work on general relativity to his lifelong attempt to find a unifying factor between the four fundamental forces of nature. He also won a Nobel prize for physics for the discovery of the Photoelectric effect. However, fundamentally he was a chemist, working on the atomic model and laying the foundation for what would eventually become the nuclear program for power and weapons. When he was nearing his death, he was annoyed about how pastors and priests around the world were talking about him embracing religion in his final few years, even despite him stating he was an atheist all his life. To allay any suspicions, he wrote an open letter about his views on God and philosophy in general. He stated that God was a complicated concept, but he himself did not and never had believed in the concept of a higher power. The letter was auctioned off for a tidy sum of 3 million dollars.

(Source: New Yorker)

19. A baseball card with Honus Wagner’s face and statics on it was sold for a record 2.8 million dollars:

Baseball cards are often highly prized collector’s items, especially one that was released over 100 years ago. This is true for the baseball card of the baseball legend Honus Wagner. It was issued by the American Tobacco Company in 1909 and has been dubbed the “Mona Lisa” of baseball cards and was previously bought by the ice hockey maestro Wayne Gretzky, who purchased the card some years ago. The card was then sold to a private collector for 2.35 million dollars. The card was then sold again after six months, this time for a record 2.8 million dollars. The T206 Honus Wagner has been called an “icon in the field of baseball and Americana” by David Kohler, who is the president of SCP Auctions who brokered the sale both times.

(Source: Reuters)

20. The entire town of Albert, Texas, was auctioned off on eBay for nearly $2.5 million:

One of the most unusual things that have been sold on eBay was the entire town of Albert, Texas. The city is located just south of Highway 290, halfway between Johnson City and Fredericksburg, and has a population of a grand total of 13 residents, living on 20 acres of land. This was purchased by a wealthy investor who wanted to revamp the town as a tourist stop on the famous Highway 290. The investor rebuilt the town hall, renovated the public toilets, and upgraded all the other infrastructure as well. He then sold the town to another investor for over 2.5 million dollars. The town has a vibrant community who pride themselves on maintaining their early 1900s lifestyle, but heavily modernized with technology.

(Source: Albert Texas)

21. A country-house with a war-proof bunker in the basement was sold for $2.1 million:

War is hell and can strike at any time. Given the dire times that we live in, with the president of the largest military complex on the planet tweeting about raining nuclear missiles upon another maniac, it is good to be prepared for any eventuality. Realtors Gregory Gibbons and Bruce Francisco understood this fact and modified a property in New York State’s Adirondack Mountains that was which was a former military base, which has a silo under the ground. They bought the entire land and build a charming, luxurious house on it whose main highlight is a heavily-protected underground bunker that can keep up to 4 people safe during war or any other emergency. The realtors expected the house to sell for around $18 million, but unfortunately, people don’t want to spent millions of dollars for an eventuality that may never come. Until a war hits, all the owners of the house have is a costly basement. The realtors had to be satisfied with just the $2.1 million it was auctioned off for on eBay.

(Source: Forbes)

22.A small fragment of a meteorite that fell to Earth from Mars was bought for 2 million:

Meteorites fall to Earth all the time, but a meteorite that crashed into the planet in1962 was a different story altogether. This meteorite, found in Nigeria, was not an ordinary comet. This particular piece of rock had traveled to Earth all the way from Mars! Martian Meteorites usually come to earth due to an asteroid crashing into Mars, which flings debris into space. This debris can sometimes travel the 293 million kilometers between the two planets, and land on Earth. There are just 120 meteorites that have been confirmed to be from the red planet.. In 2006, the owner of such a piece of geological history decided to sell the meteorite off on eBay. They attached a certificate of authenticity that they had obtained from Northwestern University. The item, in the end, did not go to any planetarium or space museum, instead, it went a private collector who was willing to shell out nearly 2 million dollars for it.

(Source: ECommerce Bytes)

23. A collection of large vintage lunchboxes of classic cartoon characters was auctioned off for $1.7 million:

Vintage lunchboxes are inexplicably some of the most expensive collectors’ items on the planet, with rare lunchboxes selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars! The most extensive collection of large-sized vintage lunchboxes was sold on eBay for 1.7 million dollars! These included classic lunchboxes like Underdog, Howdy Doody, and even Superman. These collector’s items will only grow in value, so if you have 1.7 million dollars in spare change to throw around, these actually make for an excellent and safe investment that will only grow in value. However, real estate is still a better choice for your financial portfolio.

(Source: American Upbeat)

eBay Facts and Statistics

Now that we have seen the weird side of eBay and marveled at the amount of money that people spend on eBay let’s take a look into the general facts and statistics about eBay.

24. The first item ever auctioned on eBay was a broken laser pointer, sold by Pierre Omidyar himself:

In 1995, Pierre Omidyar created his website named Auction Web, and put his old laser pointer on it. He posted on various forums about it, mainly forums that were serving as a place to auction items, the very thing he wanted to replace. Nobody bid on the pointer during its first week, however soon, a bidding war started, which saw the laser pointer being sold for $14.83. Omidyar contacted the buyer, asking him if he understood the pointer was broken. He had purchased the $30 pointer to give presentations, however, it ended up as a cat toy and broke within a few weeks. The buyer responded by stating that he collected broken laser pointers as a hobby. The internet is truly a weird place.

(Source: Time)

25. Britain has well over 1,026 eBay millionaires:

Considering it the country with the most amount of eBay traffic, it is not surprising that there are over 1,026 businesses or individuals that have managed to earn over one million dollars. This trend started with a Skorpion CD being the first item ever sold on the UK version of the website, and eBay quickly penetrating into the British culture.

(Source: eBay)

26. eBay helped to discover a new sea urchin species:

eBay is known as the place where the weird and amazing parts of the internet meet. People can order anything from winter socks to a half-eaten French toast that was eaten by Justin Timberlake, all from eBay. However, sometimes eBay is a wonderful place, as when it was when it helped in the discovery of a branch new species of sea urchin. A man who collects sea urchins from the seafloor and sells to collectors. He discovered a brightly colored sea urchin, which he mistakenly labeled it as a member of the Coelopluerus Interruptus. The buyer sent the sea urchin to the Zoological Nomenclature at the Natural History Museum in London, where it was examined by Dr. Simon Coppard. Upon close investigation, Dr. Coppard realized that the urchin was from an as of yet undiscovered species. He named the new species Coelopluerus Exquisitus after its brightly colored spines and shell. Sea urchin auctions are becoming increasingly common on eBay, with most selling in the $50 – $150 range.

(Source: The Guardian)

27. There are 1.4 billion items up for auction at any one time, on average:

eBay is growing rapidly and is currently one of the biggest sales platforms on the planet. The platform allows for items to be sold in an auction, or by the “Buy It Now” feature, in which users can purchase the item for a fixed price. According to eBay, by the end of 2018, there were nearly 1.4 billion items for sale at any given point of time. There have been an estimated 12 billion items sold over eBay.

(Source: eBay)

28. eBay used to own PayPal and Skype:

eBay is known for its auction and sale service before any other service it provides. However, most people had used services that originated or matured when they were a subsidiary of eBay. The two most popular subsidiaries of eBay are the payment platform PayPal and the P2P communication platform Skype. PayPal was created for the simple purpose of providing a safe and secure way to pay for anything online without worrying aboutbeing scammed. PayPal was created by the famous engineer Elon Musk and was purchased and made and subsidiary by eBay in 2005. The company then grew as a subsidiary under eBay and was split from eBay in 2015 and is now an independent payment platform being used by a large number of websites to power their transactions. However, the story of Skype is not as successful. Skype was purchased by eBay to use its P2P technology to avoid creating a centralized server, and instead, allow users to connect to different users directly. However, eBay wasn’t able to successfully adapt the technology and had to sell to the Canadian Retirement Investment Fund, which incubated the company until it was sold to Microsoft for a large sum of 8 billion dollars.

(Source: Geek Wire, The Atlantic)

29. The original color of the website of yellow and was changed gradually to be the crisp white it is today:

Customer experiences depend on a large variety of factors, ranging for product satisfaction to prices, to even the UI of a website. eBay learned this the hard way when they decided to change the look of their website. The change was to simply change the background color from yellow to a bright white. This irked so many customers, who sent out a large number of complaints to eBay. They were forced to change the background back to yellow. However, eBay hit back with the most one of the pettiest things that a company has ever done. They wrote an algorithm that changed the shade of the background one shade at a time until, over the period of a few months, the color of the website went from bright yellow to the crisp white we know today.

(Source: The UX Blog)

30. The British band The Darkness tracked a leaked album using eBay:

The Darkness is a British band who, in 2005, released their album “One Way Ticket to Hell and Back.” The album was released in November 2005. However, a copy of the album was leaked online, with it coming to an auction on eBay. The album sparked a bidding war with the bids climbing quickly to 270 pounds. The band’s lead singer Justin Hawkins bought the copy by offering the seller 350 pounds on the spot. Justin stated that he would use the CD’s bar-code to figure out which was a seller that leaked the CD to the public.

(Source: BBC)

31. Jack Sheng was the first person to get a feedback score of a million:

Jack Sheng was one of the first users on eBay who started to consistently sell items on the planet, quickly gaining a large number of reviews and feedback on the feedback system that eBay implemented on their platform in ’99. Jack was among the first people to gain over 50,000 points on this feedback scale, which earned him a green shooting star over his name, certifying him as a trusted seller. Soon he hit a feedback score of 1 million, for which the team at eBay specifically designed another shooting star for Jack, which they dubbed the “Sweating Star.” The rating for Jack skyrocketed after this revelation, and his rating doubles in just 18 months, reaching 2 million in feedback rating soon. eBay even named a conference room in their headquarters after him.

(Source: eBay)

32. NASA used eBay to buy parts that it couldn’t find at any of their suppliers:

NASA’s shuttles were designed in the 1960s and 70s, and hence used technologies from that era. The shuttles were launched using twin booster rockets and their own main engine. These twin boosters use solid rocket fuel, which cannot be extinguished once it starts firing. Hence, a misfire could cause catastrophic damages to the shuttle and the launch pad itself. The hardware on these boosters would use a checking system that was powered by an 8086 microprocessor, which stopped being produced by the end of the 1980s. However, in 2002, NASA stated that they could not afford to upgrade their boosters to use modern technology and was not able to find any manufacturers that produced the 8086 microprocessors. Therefore, NASA went onto eBay to find any electronics that used 8086 microprocessors, which they could repurpose for their boosters. Soon after this incident, NASA decided to finally give in and upgrade the checking hardware.

(Source: The New York Times)

33. eBay buy it immediately feature accounts for more than 68% of all sales on the platform:

eBay may have started its life out as the biggest auction website on the internet, but it has changed the way it earns a lot of its revenue. Since November 2000, eBay has had a “Buy It Now” feature, which allows for buyers to purchase items for a fixed price, without going through an auction, thereby securing the item for themselves. Using this “Buy It Now” feature, many brands and large scale manufacturers sell their merchandise directly to the consumers, much like Amazon or Walmart’s online stores. This feature was very well received by the eBay users, and by 2011 accounted for nearly 51% of all revenue that eBay earned. This percentage only grew over the years, accounting for as much as 68% of all revenue in 2018.

(Source: Huff Post)

34. Electronics and associated accessories are the top sellers on eBay:

There are nearly 13 major categories of items that get sold on eBay, ranging from automotive to even Giga yachts (see below). The largest section of items that get sold on eBay is the electronics and other associated accessories, which account for nearly 16.4% of all sales on eBay. These items include all gadgets like laptops, mobile phones, game consoles, etc. This category also accounts for accessories like chargers, laptop tables and fans, and skins and covers. The second biggest category that sells on eBay is the Clothing and associated accessories, like jackets or socks.

(Source: Edison Trends)

35. The average eBay user spends nearly 7 minutes and 22 seconds per visit on the website:

Research into eBay’s userbase has shown that most users who access the website know exactly what they desire to buy and hence navigate straight to it among the billions of other items. The window shoppers normally just browse their favorite categories until they find an auction that they wish to bid upon. The time that an average user spends on the application per visit tends to be around 7 minutes and 22 seconds, with most users only using the application once per day. The total amount of time spent on the application per month for a user is in the range of 150 minutes or approximately 2 and a half hours.

(Source: Similar Web)

eBay – 35 Interesting Stats and Facts

Quick Facts

Weird Stuff

Expensive Stuff

eBay Facts and Statistics

Sources: