In terms of traffic growth and market share, it’s just no contest. So many more people hit eBay’s options that Google’s Checkout and Base may as well be invisible.
When Microsoft is beating Google at something, it can’t be a good thing. As Hitwise analyst LeeAnn Prescott noted in her look at how Google Base and Checkout have fared since last summer against eBay and PayPal, Windows Live Expo has a larger market share than Google Base.
That’s a tough slice of icy cold reality to have for breakfast. I’d hate to be the Googler who has to take that little dish to whoever’s the project manager for Base. “Sorry, but Microsoft’s hit us with a chair, ma’am.”
Recent market share for eBay versus Google Base and PayPal versus Google Checkout…well, it’s best if LeeAnn tells you:
According to Hitwise data, last week (week ending 2/3/07) the market share of visits to eBay was 844 times greater than the share of visits to Google Base. Paypal’s market share exceeded Google Checkout’s by 71 to 1 in the same period. Clearly Google Checkout has been doing better than Google Base, thanks to aggressive promotions, which is not something that Google typically does.
Google Checkout did enjoy a big spike around Christmas 2006, when they ran their $10 off discount offer. PayPal recently one-upped Google by offering a $15 rebate for purchases of $30 or more made through them with a roster of merchants like Barnes & Noble and 1-800-Flowers.com.
Google Base has seen its market share drop 18 percent from July 2006 to January 2007, based on the infograph LeeAnn provided in the post. Google Checkout share leaped by 362 percent, thanks in part to the $10 signup discount they continue to offer.
“eBay commanded 1.6% of all Internet visits in January 2007, so an incremental 1.3% growth for eBay is almost 10 times larger than Google Base’s entire January market share of 0.0019%,” LeeAnn wrote.
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