14 DAY TRIAL // eBay isn't going through its best period yet and has seen a steady decline for several years now. The auction site, once one of the biggest on the web, saw a 33 percent decline in page views in the last year with the number of unique visitors also dropping but at a smaller rate. Meanwhile, newly revamped, GM might start selling cars through eBay in California though no deal has been struck yet.
New data from research firm Nielsen shows 40 percent drop in page views since May 2005 to the same month this year with a sharper drop of 33 percent since last year. This has been accentuating lately with a 6.8-percent drop in April 2009 followed by an even worse 7.9 drop in May.
The number of unique visitors shows the same bleak picture but dropped only 7 percent in May year over year, and 14 percent since May 2007. eBay had 51.2 million unique visitors in April, and 51.6 million in May, according to auctionbytes.
One of the reasons for the decline, put forward by the NYTimes' Bits blog, is the identity crisis eBay has been going through lately with the greater emphasis on direct transactions from big retailers leaving some of the smaller sellers dissatisfied and also driving away some of the buyers who are increasingly confused as to what eBay wants to be, an online retailer or an auction site.
Meanwhile, the company has denied having reached a deal with GM after the car manufacturer had boasted a partnership with the auction site to sell new products through eBay Motors in California. eBay confirmed the talks but said no definite deal had been reached. The cars won't be sold by GM directly but rather by the local dealers and there may be the possibility to sell them through an auction system.