Indian sellers on eBay, a leading online marketplace, export an item internationally every 32 seconds, according to the company’s Asian exporters’ index released on Wednesday. While 44 pieces of jewellery are sold every hour by Indian sellers on this platform, a coin or a stamp is picked up every 12 minutes, home furnishing items every 23 minutes, article of clothing every six minutes and 11 musical instruments every day, the index has shown.
While books, fashion earrings, pendants, Indian stamps, computer games, films and DVDs are among the top 10 categories that Indians are exporting on the eBay platform, there are some unusual entries too in the list. For instance, belly dancing apparel is seventh, followed by herbal remedies, bed sheets and motorcycle parts.
For Indian sellers on eBay, diamond is the top product category. For China, the leading product category is electronic items, while it is gemstones for Thailand, Singapore watches, Malaysia textbooks, Taiwan toys, Hong Kong photos, Japan and Korea fashion-related items.
Making the presentation, eBay India Director (categories) Kashyap Vadapalli said newer categories were also making their presence felt on the platform. Manufacturers dealing in optics, lab instruments and nautical devices are among the new entrants.
Mainly, jewellery, apparel/accessories, home furnishing, and metal/woodwork were popular with Indians selling abroad, he added.
China leads the list of Asian exporting markets on eBay, followed by Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand and Korea. The top buying countries are the US, Australia, the UK, Germany, Canada, France, Spain, Brazil, Italy, Russia, in that order. And the top 10 Asian export categories, on the basis of the index, are clothing, jewellery, photos, computers or related products, cellphones, auto parts, consumer electronics, toys, sport goods and health items.
Estimates suggest that over 7,300 sellers from India have traded internationally in the last 12 months on eBay. The Indian arm of US-based eBay has over 2.7 million registered users. And at any given time, there are over two million live listings on eBay India across 2,000 categories of products. Around 23,000 sellers sell on eBay India annually.
Globally, eBay users trade $1,877 worth of goods on the site every second. The most expensive item sold till date is a private business jet for $4.9 million.