Ebay UK - Small businesses flock to sell online

It clear from recently published site statistics that eBay is becoming the marketplace of choice for small and medium sized businesses across the UK. With almost 10 million users and over 8.7 million visitors a month, eBay.co.uk has, in effect, become the UK's largest shopping centre.

Many small businesses are using the traffic that the site generates to sell their own stock. Local businesses are using it to gain customers from across the country -- and in many cases, the world. Other small businesses are using the site to "clear their shelves" of old stock, making space for the new.

At the same time, small and medium sized businesses are using eBay as their own website. Many have set up "eBay shops". While the costs of setting up and maintaining a website -- not to mention marketing costs and the costs of taking online payments -- are prohibitive for many companies, the footfall generated by eBay's users is bringing people to their virtual front door.

There are 1,000s of SMEs selling on ebay.co.uk. PowerSellers (those that sell more than £750 per month sales on average) are the pillars of the eBay community. With over 135 million registered eBay users worldwide, the site is opening up international markets to small and medium sized UK businesses.

Azita Qadri, who is responsible for helping eBay's biggest sellers, many of which are small and medium sized businesses comments:

"eBay is the perfect meeting of buyers and sellers. Because there are so many people browsing the site's highways and by-ways, it's likely that someone will be interested in buying more-or-less anything on eBay.

We see retailers from technology companies clearing anything from new mobile phones to laptops, making way for the latest models, to fashion retailers clearing the rails for the new season. But there are lots of other businesses using eBay to clear surplus stock - from antiques and art to toys and games.

The site really is the best place for small businesses to get a ready-made website that will attract footfall from regular eBay users searching for their items. eBay is enabling businesses to reach new audiences and to sell off surplus stock."

You can view our article series on setting up and running a business using Ebay UK here.