Why have an eBay strategy in 2021?

Image: Natee Meepian / Shutterstock.com
In this article, I’ll take a look at Ebay in 2021: its size, the markets where it is popular, and what types of products sell best on the platform. I’ll also look at Ebay’s offerings for businesses and how brands can benefit from a presence on the site, as well as tips for how to optimise that presence, drawing on material from Econsultancy’s recently-published Third-Party Marketplaces Best Practice Guide.
Online marketplace eBay is probably most closely associated with the early days of ‘web 2.0’ – the 1990s and the early 2000s – when the internet was just becoming established as a place to sell things, and ecommerce was new, exciting and a little chaotic.
More than two and a half decades on from its founding, however, the online shopping space is much more crowded and competitive, and eBay is no longer necessarily top-of-mind for brands or consumers. When it comes to generalist marketplaces, Amazon Marketplace dominates, at least in the west; Alibaba and its subsidiaries Taobao and Tmall are also key for businesses selling in, or to, China and the surrounding regions. Is it still worth having a dedicated presence on, and strategy for, eBay in 2021?