Online Exchange Potential Impact - Wrap

4.3.1 Quantifying sales on Gumtree
Items are advertised locally, so the numbers of each priority item listed for sale in each of the five
chosen areas were recorded. As Towcester, Chichester and Doncaster are not on Gumtree, the
closest available areas were used instead, these being Milton Keynes, Portsmouth and Sheffield
respectively. There are demographic differences between, for example, Towcester (a small market
town in an affluent rural area) and Milton Keynes (a large town with a mixed population). However
the Gumtree groups are generally regional or city-wide and therefore it has been necessary to use
these alternative locations. The chosen areas of Towcester, Chichester and Doncaster are assumed to
fall within the Gumtree groups of Milton Keynes, Portsmouth and Sheffield. We acknowledge that the
Gumtree groups may not have the demographic profile of the local authorities listed in Table 3.1, but
due to the nature of the website it is not possible to identify a specific socio-economic profile.
Other issues associated with monitoring Gumtree listings include the variability of group usage and
geographic anomalies of group boundaries. It has not been possible to review the level of usage and
socio-demographic profile of users of every group in the UK and so the groups used may not be
representative of the UK as a whole. Future research on website usage could incorporate an
assessment of site users but this would either have to focus on a relatively small sample and be
locally representative, or be a significantly larger research project in order to be representative of the
UK. The research that has been conducted is therefore likely to be indicative of website usage rather
than representative of usage.
The priority item monitoring shows the scale that Gumtree operates on, relative to other sites
monitored for this project. It does not, however, show how many items are actually sold through
Gumtree. There is no straightforward way to determine if an item has been sold or not; many adverts
are left online even after the item has sold and others may be removed early.
Gumtree adverts were sampled on 8 September 2010. Gumtree was only monitored for one day
because items remain advertised for 30 days; therefore one month of advertised items can be
monitored in one day.
4.4 Preloved
Preloved is a classified ads website, where users can advertise items for sale. Searches for a specific
item will bring up local adverts first, followed by regional ones and then national ones.
4.4.1 Quantifying sales on Preloved
Towcester and Chichester are not areas listed on Preloved (the same problem that arose for
Gumtree); so Milton Keynes and Portsmouth were used instead as these groups on Preloved
appeared to cover Towcester and Chichester. The numbers of each priority item advertised in each of
these areas were recorded, but again this is not indicative of how many items were actually sold.
Preloved was monitored on 9 September 2010. One day’s monitoring was taken to be sufficient
because items remain advertised for 30 days, and therefore one month of advertised items can be
monitored in one day.
4.5 Business-to-business (b2b)
Business-to-business exchange sites are similar in function to all of the above portals (except eBay),
but they serve only the commercial sector. There are a number of providers but the total number of
listings available for exchange is much smaller than from the non-commercial sites. This difference is
attributable to two core factors: (outsourced) procurement and the need to recoup expenditure.
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