Forget hitting the mall. Holiday shopping is now all about lounging on your couch, missing the retail store madness, and ordering things online, according to data from eBay, PayPal and Channel Advisor.  And this Black Friday, the kickoff of the annual Holiday shopping frenzy, it seems both Amazon (s AMZN) and eBay (s EBAY) are off to a great start.

Channel Advisor data shows that both Amazon and eBay are seeing an upswing in demand on their marketplaces, while eBay has seen a sharp uptick in the fixed price sales.

  • Overall Thanksgiving 2011 is trending 15% higher than 2010
  • Marketplaces were up 14%
  • Search is up 13%
  • CSE is up 1%

Within marketplaces:

  • eBay is up 7%
  • Amazon is up 27%

Within eBay, some trends:

  • Auctions were down 37% (makes sense as Auctions are not a great format for holiday shopping – you want to know you are going to get something vs. waiting 7 days)
  • Fixed price was up 13%
  • Parts and Accessories were up 25%

Data from eBay itself shows a strong start.

  • The amount shoppers in the U.S. spent via eBay Mobile more than doubled this Thanksgiving over last year.
  • GSI Commerce announced a more than three-fold (345%) increase in U.S. mobile sales this Thanksgiving compared to 2010.
  • Searches through the Milo.com platform increased 557% percent over Thanksgiving Day 2010.Milo.com powers eBay’s local shopping and enables shoppers to check a product’s local availability and price from home.

On PayPal side of the house, eBay says that:

  • PayPal Mobile saw a five-fold (511%) increase in global mobile payment volume when compared to Thanksgiving 2010.
  • There was a more than three-fold (350%) increase in the number of global customers shopping through PayPal mobile on Thanksgiving 2011 compared to last year.

Om Malik is a San Francisco based writer, photographer and investor. Read More

91 thoughts on “This Black Friday, eBay, PayPal are feeling flush”

  82. As far as saving when buying on eBay goes:

    Use a site like Ebuyersedge.com to set up saved searches. You get an e-mail whenever a matching item is newly listed. Especially good for “Buy It Now”s that are priced right.

    Try a misspelling search using a site like Typojoe.com to hopefully find some great deals with items that have main key words misspelled in the title. Other interested buyers might not ever see them.

    If you see an auction that you want to bid on, use a sniping service such as Bidball.com to place your bid for you. It’ll bid in the last few seconds, helping you to save money and avoid shill bidding.

    Reply

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