eBay Outlines Impact of Coronavirus on Sales and Advertising

Monday, May 4, 2020 - 11:37 by Graham Miller

Online auction site eBay is one of many e-commerce retailers that is having to face up to changes in consumer habits brought about by the lockdown conditions enforced as a result of the current pandemic.

While it has seen more people using its site and app to make purchases via safe shopping online in the weeks following the introduction of restrictions on bricks and mortar outlets, it has also reported that the number of people using its classified advertising site had fallen significantly.

In particular, its business has been negatively impacted by the fact that a lot of car dealerships have been required to close their doors, and thus there is much lower demand for its web-based car-selling platform.

Another complication of the COVID-19 crisis is that eBay has seen a lot of people trying to either sell products about which false claims of health benefits are made or offering essential items which are in short supply at other retailers at significantly increased price points.

Over 15 million listings which fall into one of these two categories have been removed from eBay in the past few weeks, and it will continue to take down and block sellers who attempt to use any of these underhanded tactics to exploit the current situation for their own gain.

One other trend which eBay has seen since coronavirus changed life in the UK is that more small businesses are adopting its services in order to sell goods to customers at a time when they do not have the means to do so as they would normally.

Marketplace sites like eBay could prove vital to helping smaller firms stay afloat until lockdown restrictions are relaxed and the option to visit real-world outlets is restored to shoppers.