Ebay Secrets Blog

Today we are releasing August data for Marketplaces (eBay/Amazon), Search and Comparison Shopping Engines (CSE).   This month we are also starting supplemental data for search and CSE.

August results

August saw another incremental improvement.  SSS overall was up ~5% compared to July . The results for each channel were as follows with some commentary:

• Amazon - Amazon came in at 62% equal to July's 62%.  Amazon continues to be very robust across most categories.  International is very strong as is interest in FBA.
• eBay -  eBay remains somewhat anemic at 1% growth up from 0%.
• CSE - Comparison Shopping Engines increased nicely to 8% from 3.13%.  
• Search - Search accelerated again in August to 19%, up from July's 14.19% 
• Overall - Overall we see that e-commerce in August accelerated back to the mid to high teens.  Hopefully the consumer can remain optimistic as we head into Q4.  SSS Chart

The following chart details the SSS data for 2010 through August:

Supplemental data for Search and CSE

We've had a  lot of requests from customers to expose some more data around Search and CSE.

For search, we are providing y/y SSS data for the following datapoints:

• Clicks – volume of clicks
• Orders – Volume of orders
• Cost – Overall cost for combined campaigns
• CPC – Cost per click on average
• CPC y/y SSS delta – the difference in CPC for August 10 vs. August 09 for SSS
• CR – Conversion rate
• CR change y/y – August 10 vs. August 09 for SSS
• AOV – Average Order Value

The details are available in this table:

As you can see search was a mixed bag:

Negatives:

• CPC was down slightly y/y at .35%, mostly in sympathy with – CPC tends to receive a lot of attention and press, but is a small part of the search picture.
• AOV was down 10%, due to category mix.

Positives:

• Clicks (essentially volume) were up 15%
• Conversions were up 13%
• Together that yielded a bump in orders of 31%, a strong increase.

For CSE, we are providing y/y CSE conversion rates as a blend of all engines:

Call tomorrow -September 8th.

Goldman Sachs is hosting a call tomorrow to discuss SSS trends, back to school and some other topics of interest.  If you are on Wall St., you can contact your rep for details.  Otherwise, you can listen into the webinar online here:  

      http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=72061

Here is the SSS release schedule for the rest of the year:

• October 7
• November 9
• December 7
• Increased frequency for the holiday period TBA

SeekingAlpha disclosure: I am long Google and Amazon.  eBay is an investor in ChannelAdvisor where I am CEO.

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Related posts:

1. ChannelAdvisor Same Store Sales (SSS) for June 2010
2. ChannelAdvisor Same Store Sales (SSS) for July 2010
3. Changes coming to ChannelAdvisor Same Store Sales (SSS) data…
4. ChannelAdvisor’s May Same Store Sales – SSS
5. September Same Store Sales – eBay continues growth trend.