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From the commuter browsing the news on their tablet to your colleague checking their messages on their smartphone, there’s no denying the sheer ubiquity of the digital revolution – and with this lifestyle embraced as a personal pastime, businesses have tapped into this and adapted it to meet their professional purposes.
So it comes as no surprise that retailers are reporting significant boosts to their online trading activities: and Parcel2Go has captured the results to share some extremely interesting insights into what’s hot (average and maximum earnings), what’s not (security concerns) as well as what the future has in store for the retail industry (excuse the pun).
And the winner is…eBay!
With a global customer base of 233 million, the crown for the world’s most popular trading channel goes to eBay. Taking 96.7 per cent of the votes, eBay proved to be the channel of choice for traders – while Amazon were placed as runner-ups with 20.8 per cent. Questioning the habits of 607 businesses, 461 of the respondents placed Etsy third on the list with 4.1 per cent, with Abebooks, Yahoo Shopping and Craigslist each scoring 1.7 per cent, 0.4 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively.
Detailing the findings where online trading was the primary income source, the infographic highlighted the most commonly reported income range to be £1001-£5000 – with around 10 per cent reporting earnings over £30,000 (11 per cent). Interestingly enough, it was noted that online trading as a supplementary source of income featured the most commonly reported income range of £0-£500.
‘Categorically’ speaking
But what exactly are people selling online? Well wonder no more, as overall and for eBay traders, the most popular categories consist of clothing (34.2 per cent) and jewellery (34.6 per cent). Where home and garden items proved the goods of choice for Amazon traders (36.8 per cent), as far as Etsy fans were concerned, it was all things homemade and handicraft (66.7 per cent).
Yet the big bucks were found in the form of toys and games as well as home and garden items – where at 55.6 per cent each, the highest earning traders were walking away with over £30,000.
Safety first
However, security is an area of huge concern for online traders – with roughly a third of sellers losing money as a result of fraudulent activity. Approximately 15 per cent of traders noted that fraud had seriously impacted their profitability, while more than half of traders (53.9 per cent) felt that online fraud was a matter that was not taken as seriously as it should have been by the authorities. Despite these issues, fortunately a large majority of sellers (63.7 per cent) believed the online marketplace they were conducting their trading in had “taken reasonable steps to protect sellers from fraud”.
Would you say your experiences were similar to these findings? Share your thoughts with the rest of the trading community today!
