ChannelAdvisor BlackFriday and CyberMonday results are in!

We just issued a press release detailing our BF (BlackFriday) and CM (CyberMonday) results here and I wanted to share some highlights and add some detail around our marketplace results for eBay Strategies readers.

One caveat is that these results are for our total business which includes a LOT of customer additions over the year which definitely skews things.  We'll have same-store-sales out shortly for November and I'll share some interesting stats we see there.

CyberMonday and eBay

eBay USA had a strong CM for us - up 50% y/y.  What's really interesting is we're able to separate out the different formats and auctions are down 8%y/y and fixed-price (includes stores) are up a whopping 139% (together they yield the 50% increase).  For ChannelAdvisor's customers, fixed-price is rapidly approaching 2X of auctions.

Another interesting point on eBay - things were actually kind of sluggish on BF, up only 30% y/y, so we are seeing a material acceleration in that short period.  This is NOT the case with any other channel, they ramped up to a strong y/y growth on BF and then held it on CM whereas eBay ramped up into CM.

I'd hazard a guess there are a couple of trends at play:

• eBay is really pouring on the marketing right now (coupons, radio, ms-cashback, paid-search, etc).
• We're hearing that offline and some online retailers have such low inventories due to economic concerns that many items you wouldn't think would be hard to find are very hard to find.  Wii/xbox/ps3 software, many top selling toys and electronics could be in short supply offline+online as we get deeper into December.  If true, that will very much play to eBay's advantage.
• For fun, I keep an eBay search on twitter going during the day on a second monitor and you many stories about first time users, finding hard to find items, etc.  This is a neat way to keep a 'pulse' on what's going on.

ASPs on eBay are down more than other channels. I suspect that's a consumer mix issue vs. some price compression.

CyberMonday and Amazon

No matter how you slice it, Amazon is killing it this holiday season.  I don't have any visibility into their media categories (book, music, dvd), but CE, games, home and garden, sports, jewelry, apparel, you name it - it is on fire.  I suspect we'll look back in 1-2yrs and realize that 08 is the year Amazon went from a book store to a full-fledged dept store.

Amazon accelerated on BF to a 230% growth rate and has held there through CyberMonday.  The inventory shortages I mentioned in the eBay section will definitely benefit Amazon's proMerchants as well.  Amazon is very cleverly sending notes to merchants notifying them of sku's that are in demand that they have sold before and proactively urging them to stock the virtual shelves.

Amazon also has a ton of interesting promotions that get a good bit of consumer buzz. 

What will be the peak this year?

Usually we see continued growth into the next couple of Mondays (12/8 and 12/15 this year) - that some call GreenMondays - and we'll continue to report what we see.  It will be interesting to see where things hit their zenith this year and if my theory on eBay/Amazon benefiting from short inventory levels plays out or not. 

Stay tuned and if you have any questions or observations - hit the comments.

SeekingAlpha Disclosure: I am long google and Amazon

Comments

[Eddie]

"For fun, I keep an eBay search on twitter going during the day on a second monitor"

Lets try it shall we - I twitted an eBay related comment, I wonder if you will spot it ?

[BMX]

ASP's are down on ebay because of their bull $$$$ initiatives to drive ASP's down.

The 'average price on ebay' crap on the item specifics pages is terrible.

Last time I checked you want to provide value but at the same time profit to sellers.

[Henrietta]

You said "No matter how you slice it, Amazon is killing it this holiday season." and I have no reason to doubt you.
Contrast this with today's post on eBayInkBlog:
" I also saw that the Nielsen Online Holiday Shopping Index had eBay as the top online retail destination on Black Friday with 9.8 million unique visitors.." and I hasten to add that I have no reason to doubt Richard Brewer-Hay either although at times I question the transparency of his sources.
In your opinion, what does this mean? Are loads of people checking eBay but buying elsewhere?