AuctionBytes last week reported on eBay traffic data for the past 4 years as provided by Nielsen Online, and noted a decline in page views throughout 2008. This week we obtained Amazon.com data for the past year to compare the two online marketplaces to see if there were significant differences in traffic trends.

The data shows that Amazon's page views were down by 1.13 percent in October year-over year (YoY), while eBay's page view's were down 32.61 percent. Amazon's page views peaked in December of 2007 while eBay's page views peaked in November.

Amazon's unique audience numbers were up by 7.85 percent in October 2008 (YoY), while eBay's unique audience was down by 9.7 percent. The trend lines in the following chart show Amazon and eBay both peaked in December 2007 in terms of unique visitors.

Nielsen Online also provided data on the average time spent on the sites by user. As illustrated in the chart, the time spent by users on Amazon showed little variation over the past 12 months. A comparison of October 2008 data showed that a user spent 23 minutes on Amazon.com compared to 24 minutes in October 2007 - a 4% decrease. eBay showed a 19% decline in average time spent on the site during the same period: 132 minutes in October 2007 compared to 107 minutes last month.

We took the Nielsen Online data and determined the average number of page views per unique visitor. This metric also declined for eBay over the past year. In October 2007 the average number of pages per unique visitor was 249 on eBay. In October 2008, that number had decreased to 186, a 25.3% decline. In October 2007 the average number of pages per unique visitor was 44 on Amazon, and that number decreased to 40 in October 2008 - a 9% decline.

eBay has made major changes to its search algorithm and "finding" experience over the past year, which may be impacting the average time spent on the site and the number of pages per visitor. But the decline in unique visitors to eBay going into the holiday shopping season is significant. We welcome your comments on the AuctionBytes Blog