EBay sales strong in June: report

By Alistair Barr

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Retailers generated strong sales growth through eBay Inc <EBAY.O> Inc in June, e-commerce software company ChannelAdvisor said on Monday.

Sales through Amazon.com Inc <AMZN.O> marketplaces surged again in June, but the pace was not as swift was the previous month, ChannelAdvisor added.

ChannelAdvisor, part owned by eBay, is a software provider that helps retailers sell more online through channels such as marketplaces, paid search and comparison-shopping websites.

The company's monthly sales numbers come from more 3,000 of its retail clients. Analysts at Barclays Capital reckon there is a strong correlation between this data and the sales of Amazon.com and eBay, two of the world's largest e-commerce companies.

"The softness was more than seasonality and we'll keep a close eye on it as we go into Q3," Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor, wrote in a company blog on Monday.

Sales through eBay's marketplaces were up 14.6 percent in June, compared with the same month a year earlier. That compares with year-over-year sales growth of 12.6 percent in May, according to ChannelAdvisor.

Fixed-price sales through eBay's marketplaces rose 19 percent in June. As the mix continues to move away from auctions and toward fixed prices, eBay sales growth should pick up, Wingo explained.

Sales through eBay's automotive parts and accessories marketplace jumped 26.7 percent in June, compared to a year earlier.

EBay is developing specific product categories for its online marketplaces business to try to encourage more shopping.

On eBay Motors, the company launched My Garage to make it easier to find parts and accessories that match shoppers' vehicles. An eBay Motors iPhone app lets people scan in Vehicle Identification Numbers, or VINs, to quickly upload vehicle information to My Garage.

"The changes in that vertical eBay has implemented have been clearly working," Wingo said. "As eBay rolls it's vertical focus to other areas (they've been mentioning Consumer Electronics a lot lately), that could bode well for continued growth."

Sales through Amazon.com's marketplaces were up 69.9 percent in June, compared with the same month a year earlier, ChannelAdvisor reported. That compares with year-over-year sales growth of 84 percent in May.

(Reporting by Alistair Barr; editing by Andre Grenon)