eBay customers exodus in March 2008
Looks like the recent eBay changes anounced in February are taking their toll. ComScore published month to month search query reports for major internet sites and eBay along with some AOL properties are the only ones in the minus territory.
Where there is no searching, there is no finding. No finding = no sales.
Update 4-26-2008 Reading AuctionBytes Blog today, a confirmation of decline Year over Year post independently confirms this trend:
Nielsen Online’s eBay Data Shows Interesting Trends
By: Ina Steiner
Tue Apr 22 2008 23:42:38
In preparing a Newsflash article about eBay metrics, I calculated the percent change in Page Views and Unique Audience for January, February and March 2008, year-over-year, from data provided by Nielsen Online.
Page Views
January: Down 10.54 percent year over year
February: Down 10.69 percent year over year
March: Down 12.82 percent year over year
Unique Audience
January: Down 9.57 percent year over year
February: Down 4.75 percent year over year
March: Down 6.31 percent year over year
The decline in page views has to be of concern to eBay - an almost 13 percent drop in page views in March from the previous year.
I was curious if the numbers might hint at any boycott effect. Looking at the numbers month-to-month, it shows a 13.21 percent drop in page views from January 2008 to February, and a 6.48 percent increase from February to March. There was also a 10.85 percent drop in time spent per person from January 2008 to February. It’s always tricky looking at month-to-month numbers, as seasonal effects can cause swings.
The raw monthly data from January 2007 through March 2008 - including time spent on site per person - is included in the Newsflash article, which will be published later this week.
comScore Expanded Search Query Report
March 2008 vs. February 2008
Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch 2.0
Search Queries (MM)
Point Change
Mar-08 vs.
Expanded Search Entity Feb-08 Mar-08 Feb-08
Total Expanded Search 13,806 15,088 9%
Google Sites 7,390 8,267 12%
Google 5,917 6,531 10%
YouTube/All Other 1,473 1,736 18%
Yahoo! Sites 2,262 2,391 6%
Yahoo! 2,234 2,359 6%
All Other 28 32 14%
Microsoft Sites 984 1,054 7%
MSN-Windows Live 952 1,019 7%
Microsoft/All Other 32 35 9%
AOL LLC 864 891 3%
AOL 493 527 7%
MapQuest/All Other 371 364 -2%
Ask Network 452 506 12%
Ask.com 283 316 12%
MyWebSearch.com/ All Other 169 190 12%
eBay 480 474 -1%
Fox Interactive Media 337 377 12%
MySpace 330 368 12%
All Other 7 9 29%
Craigslist.org 239 277 16%
Amazon Sites 139 149 7%
Facebook.com 103 107 4%