1 in 6 online American adults sell things on the internet

[mandy]

17% of internet users – about 25 million people -- have sold something online

Visits to classified ad web sites have grown 80% in the past year

About 1 in 6 online American adults sell things on the internet. That amounts to approximately 25 million Americans. A nationwide telephone survey in September 2005 by the Pew Internet & American Life Project also shows that on a typical day, 2% of internet users sell something online.

Demographically, online sellers have an “early adopter” profile and they are relatively intense users of the internet. Here are the details...

full survey (.pdf format): http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Sell..._Nov05.pdf

The study finds that online sellers are more likely to be: daily Internet users, broadband users, experienced Internet users (6+ years), 29-40 years old (18-28 years old is 2nd), men (20% of men sell compared to 14% of women), college educated.

24% (35 million) of online Americans have bought or sold at online auctions [note: the 168 million registered users number eBay claims is wildly inflated due to individuals with multiple IDs] while 22% (32 million) have bought or sold at online classifieds.

The study also provides a chart detailing monthly traffic to the leading classifieds sites: Craigslist is the leader at 26.3 monthly visitors.  LiveDeal is 9th with 797,000 monthly visitors and Yahoo Classifieds is 12th with 573,000