eBay publishes new Online Business Index
New Online Business Index lifts the lid on Australian ecommerce
The release of eBay‘s inaugural Australian Online Business Index (OBI) today demonstrates a robust and growing ecommerce sector.
Based on a survey of eBay.com.au’s top sellers*, the OBI found that 67% were optimistic about their 12 month business outlook with 38% expecting to increase staffing levels during the period.
Deborah Sharkey, Managing Director, eBay Australia and New Zealand Pty Ltd, says that eBay is proud of the role it plays in incubating Australian ecommerce.
“The top 2,000 sellers on eBay.com.au have an annual turnover starting at just under $100,000 and reaching over $10 million and in 2009, 106 sellers generated over $1 million each in total sales,” said Sharkey.Although eBay is the dominant sales channel for online businesses, accounting for 63% of all sales, sellers use an average of 2.5 sales channels such as traditional bricks and mortar, their own website and other sales websites.
The OBI also asked respondents how the government can further assist with the development of the burgeoning sector. Interestingly, when asked which political party had the best policies for online businesses, 54% of respondents said “none”.When given more concrete examples of ways that the government could assist the sector, the top response was a call for a simplification of GST compliance (48%). This is probably reflective of the sector being dominated by small business, which has found GST a considerable burden.
According to Sharkey, “The OBI demonstrates that in the absence of Australia’s larger retailers coming online a healthy and growing group of medium and small sized businesses are pioneering ecommerce in Australia.”
eBay Online Business Index key findings
Proportion of online businesses feeling optimistic and / or pessimistic about their
business outlook over the next 12 months (% respondents)
Very optimistic
Quite optimistic Neither optimistic nor pessimistic
Quite pessimistic
Very pessimistic 21%
46%
21%
10%
2%
Sales channels used by the online businesses surveyed (% respondents)
eBay
Own website
Other
Online shop
Other websites
100%
50%
43%
38%
4%
Average proportion of sales flowing through each channel (average out of 100)
eBay
Offline shop
Own website
Other websites 63%
13%
12%
9%
3%
Policy and regulatory measures most likely to help (% respondents)
Simplification of GST compliance
A cut in company tax
Fewer regulations for running a business
Government lending money directly to small business
A cut in business lending interest rates
Government incentives for banks to lend more to small businesses
One agency to contact for all regulatory requirements
Fewer regulations for starting a business
Other
None
48%
41%
35%
32%
27%
27%
24%
18%
9%
2%
* About the Online Business Index
The Online Business Index is a major new survey of Australian businesses engaged in ecommerce. It has been compiled using survey responses from 454 of eBay.com.au’s top sellers, whose annual turnover ranges from $60,000 to $6.4 million.
The survey was sent to eBay.com.au’s top 3,000 sellers by sales volume and was conducted by market researchers Stokes Mischewski between 7 December 2009 and 11 January 2010 using seller information provided by eBay.
The sample on which the index is based represents online businesses of different sizes from around Australia with varying relationships to eBay.
Of the 454 sellers who responded to the survey, 273 of the top 1,500 sellers had sales ranging from $108,977 to $6,421,412 and 181 of the next 1,500 sellers had sales ranging from $60,892 to $108,959.
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