Why eBay is a man’s world – women get 20 per cent less money for their wares

Female sellers get fewer bids and lower prices, though women buy more from women, study finds

WOMEN selling goods online should take care not to reveal their gender, as a new study of eBay sales suggests buyers pay 20 per cent less for items sold by female vendors.

Researchers analysed data on all transactions of 420 of eBay’s most popular products between 2009 and 2012. They found women sellers received fewer bids and lower final prices than equally qualified male vendors for exactly the same product.

The experiment, by the University of Tel Aviv, using American eBay sales data, is the first study to use market data to examine the behaviour of women and men as sellers and buyers.

One item the report focuses on is gift cards that can be spent elsewhere. Women selling such cards obtained 6.8 per cent less on average than male sellers did for the same item.

The study said: “This example is especially telling because with gift cards buyers can easily evaluate the worth of the product with no additional information – because the condition of the product is irrelevant and because the ownership and usage of gift cards is not associated with one gender.”

Results support the idea that in online product markets, people tend to inherently assign a lower value to prod- ucts sold by women, and this affects a buyer’s willingness to pay for a desired product.

Although eBay as a policy does not state the gender of its users, the researchers said it was possible to discern gender anyway, from usernames or the kinds of items being sold. For example selling female clothing and beauty products suggests the vendor is likely to be a woman.

Tamar Kricheli-Katz said eBay was “ideal” for testing gender differences because on auction websites, potential buyers do not negotiate with the seller face-to-face.

For the purposes of the experiment, the researchers identified the gender of sellers and buyers based on the gender reported by users at the time of registration.

Dr Kricheli-Katz added: “We were not surprised by the existence of the gender price gap, but we were a little surprised by its magnitude and by the results from the gift card experiment.”

The study also revealed buyers may trust the description of a used item more if it is written by a woman. And women buyers were found to prefer purchasing products from female rather than male sellers.

A spokesman from eBay said: “This study was not conducted or commissioned by eBay and we do not reveal the gender of our sellers.” The study was published in the journal Science

Advances and looked at data from more than one million transactions.

Items in the study on which men made more money than women included folding knives, for which women made 61 per cent less; Apple iPod Touch, first generation, 32 per cent less; Invicta pro diver wrist watch, 20 per cent less; Buck fixed blade knives, 32 per cent less.

David Brackin, an entrepreneur, started selling items online 11 years ago and his company Stuff U Sell has now sold over £7 million-worth of goods.

Mr Brackin said: “We found, when we compare our listings with those of novice eBay users, we can get twice as much as them.

“And that is just from doing the basics properly.

“So if there is a difference between male and female sellers, there is an even bigger difference between doing it properly and not doing it properly.”