Fashion is one of the largest and highest velocity categories on eBay globally with Active Wear (Athletic Apparel/Sportswear) becoming one of the fastest growing sub-categories.
ShelfTrend looked at Active Wear being sold by Professional eBay Sellers across eBay's three largest English speaking markets to draw insights around:
- Market specific product ranges,
- Buyer demand from sales volume data; and,
- Supply gap opportunities.
Viewing the overall inventory mix of Active Wear, yoga wear dominates the category with specifically yoga pants (tights, shorts, harem pants etc.) being the clothing sort that has the most listings.
Across the three markets, Australia has the widest price range of yoga pants from $1.90 to $75.99 USD, while the US the narrowest between $1.89 to $19.91 USD. For all markets, more than 75% of inventory is under $10.00 USD with limited SKU depth as prices increase.
In the US and UK, more than 90% of inventory is Unbranded. In Australia 78%.
Australia has invested many years on-boarding known brands and retailers to bring about a wider SKU range and higher unit prices to the local marketplace. Higher priced yoga wear in Australia is typically branded and from their official branded store.
Let's look into each market's sales volume by units sold and gross merchandised value (GMV) to gain deeper insights into supply gap opportunities.
US Marketplace (USD)
In the chart to the right, 65.63% of eBay.com's top 500 listings for yoga pants are between $5-10 USD. Yet yoga pants under-$5 have the highest number sales at 520 units a month (highlighted in green) and yoga pants priced between$10-15 the highest GMV per month at $5,314.76 USD per month (highlighted in green).
The analysis is saying that although most live listings and inventory are between $5-10, products under $5 and between $10-15 are achieving more sales (highlighted in green in above table).
Even more interesting, the $10-15 price bracket (highlighted in orange) shows strong sales velocity stats, yet only make up 16.72% of all listings. There is strong indication of buyer demand and an opportunity for a Fashion Seller to take advantage of this supply gap to pitch a range of yoga wear between $10-15 on eBay.com.
UK Marketplace (GBP)
Data on eBay.co.uk tell a very different story. The vast majority of yoga pant listings on eBay.co.uk are between £5-10 where they also achieve the highest sales volume in terms of units sold and GMV. The other price brackets hardly compete in sales.
It's hard to say whether the sales data is the result of severely limited product selection on the UK site, or if eBay UK buyers are that committed to that price range. At this stage, there is no clear opportunities in yoga wear on eBay.co.uk.
Australian Marketplace (AUD)
Australia on the other hand presents a much broader SKU range across a wider spectrum of price and where buyers are proving to be much more amenable to paying higher prices overall.
On the eBay.com.au site, more than 50% of listings are under $10 AUD. It is also listings under $10 that achieve the highest sales velocity in terms of units sold per month (highlighted in green).
However, the highest achieving GMV per month is for yoga pants above $50(highlighted in green). In Australia, branded products in this higher price bracket go as high as $99.99 AUD yet still enjoy a pretty healthy number of sold units per month.
The opportunity in Australia is in the $15-25 price ranges (highlighted in orange) where sales stats show good buyer demand with low listing levels.
A Fashion Seller could try their hand at yoga pants within the $15-25 price range and test their way up into higher price brackets. From this data, Australian buyers are demonstrating a willingness to spend on higher prices for the right product and brand.
Branded Yoga Apparel on the US, UK and AU eBay sites
As part of the investigation into active wear we also looked into how branded products from Lululemon, Adidas by Stella McCartney, Sweaty Betty and Lorna Jane fared on eBay.
There is typically very limited SKU range for these brands and when they do appear, inventory levels are low. However, if the price is below RRP, branded apparel, even second-hand, always sell. US and AU buyers are especially brand savvy and willing to pay higher prices for branded goods than for lower priced generics.
Lorna Jane, an Australian brand, ramped their official store on eBay Australia. Not only do they now dominate listings for their brand, but buyers are converting despite their higher selling price. Their listings achieve a higher than average sales volume per month and buyers are enjoying a wider selection of active wear on eBay Australia.
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