eBay.co.uk says its sellers are seeing a Christmas rush with bargain hunters already starting to look for early gifts. Some 109 days before Christmas, there are already more than 150,000 Christmas related items for sale on the auction site.
The company says recently introduced new seller tools, aimed at making it easier to list items, are helping to fuel higher levels of sales.
Patrick Munden, head of seller communications, eBay UK and Ireland, said: “With over 17 million visitors to eBay.co.uk alone in July, sellers are really seeing the benefits of being able to get their inventory up and out quickly. With such demand for gifts already sellers need to make sure they do not get caught short with a rise in customer service obligations and not having enough inventory.”
Christy Foster, founder of baby equipment and accessories website Online4Baby, which sells through eBay, said: “Last year we learnt the importance of securing stock well in advance of the Christmas rush. We’ve already seen a sales increase of 20% in August by putting ‘buy it early for Christmas’ in our listing descriptions. If we were to leave it to November to secure our Christmas stock we would struggle to find enough suppliers to meet our demand.”
Russell Row, of Jadlam Racing Models, another eBay seller, said: “Toys are always a popular category at Christmas. Last year we saw our sales start to take off in October with Scalextric, Hornby Trains and Playmobil proving very popular and making up the majority of our sales.”
