I started selling comics full-time in 2010 and wanted to track my progress against the online back issue markets. Here’s a look at the current comics aftermarket and my progress in achieving my goal of becoming a prominent back issue dealer.
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one month change | one year change | five year change | |
| Listings in eBay’s Comic Books, Manga & Memorabilia section | 9,780,339 | +3.86% | +122.46% | +135.18% |
| Cyberspace Comics listings | 168,700 | +0.94% | +14.70% | +52.30% |
| Cyberspace Comics “market share” of comic listings on eBay | 1.72% | -2.55% | -48.51% | -35.15% |
| Number of eBay comic listings that are auctions | 304,960 | +5.42% | +6.37% | +73.11% |
| Percentage of eBay comic listings up for auction | 3.12% | +1.57% | -52.18% | -26.46% |
| Number of listings sold in eBay’s comics section (90 days) | 1,388,937 | -8.93% | +9.97% | +22.97% |
| Number of listings sold in eBay’s comics section divided by current listings | 14.20% | -12.34% | -50.57% | -47.71% |
 Total number of listings in eBay’s “comics” section My current eBay feedback (unique): 105,410 |
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one month change | one year change | five year change | |
| Listings on Atomic Avenue | 2,791,282 | +56.35% | +52.35% | +81.86% |
| Listings in the Cyberspace Comics Store on Atomic Avenue | 147,102 | +1.22% | +14.62% | +43.91 |
| Cyberspace Comics “market share” of comic listings on AtomicAvenue | 5.27% | -35.26% | -24.82% | -20.87% |
| Number of unique issues on Atomic Avenue | 266,712 | +0.59% | +4.36% | +3.32% |
| Cyberspace Comics “market share” of unique issues on AtomicAvenue | 55.15% | +0.63% | +9.82% | +39.28% |
 Total number of comics listed on Atomic Avenue |
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one month change | one year change | five year change | |
| Number of members on ComicCollectorLive | 245,940 | +0.17% | +2.70% | +47.79% |
| Number of items for sale on ComicCollectorLive | 1,312,850 | +0.50% | -3.1407% | -10.96% |
| Number of items sold on ComicCollectorLive | 2,867,886 | +0.14% | +2.71% | +23.11% |
| Number of stores open on ComicCollectorLive | 44 | +0.00% | -6.38% | -37.14% |
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one month change | one year change | five year change | |
| Number of listings in HipComic’s Comic Books section | 1,329,344 | -3.15% | +15.83% | +171.49% |
| Number of those listings that are in the Cyberspace Comics HipComic store | 165,096 | +3.60% | +20.65% | +52.45% |
| Cyberspace Comics “market share” of comic listings on HipComic | 12.42% | +6.97% | +4.19% | -43.98% |
| Number of Stores on HipComic | 387 | +0.00% | ||
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one month change | one year change | five year change | |
| Number of listings on YouSellComics | N/A | N/A | ||
eBay‘s number of listings has exceeded 9.75 million. That’s an incredible selection! The stats on their auction listings intrigue me. eBay initially launched as all auctions and now, auctions only a bit more than 3% of their listings in the comics section.
Atomic Avenue: This marketplace now boasts a selection of over a quarter million different comics. That’s pretty impressive! This is a marketplace that flies under the radar. I suspect that the large growth in their number of listings from last month is an error that will be corrected in the future (most likely a seller erroneously input a wrong quantity for a book (think 10,000 instead of 100).
Comic Collector Live: To me, it seems like this marketplace is in trouble. The number of items for sale has shrunk by over 10% in the past five years, while every other major marketplace has shown major gains in that same time period. And, during that time period, they’ve lost over 35% of their sellers.
HipComic: This marketplace is showing moderate gains in the past year but the explosive growth of its earlier years are behind them now, it seems. Surely, losing their perfect eBay sync was a major blow that some sellers just haven’t been able to overcome yet.
YouSellComics: This is a marketplace that has caught my eye. They offer extremely low selling fees. They are not displaying their number of listings this month so I can’t compare it to last month.