eBay iPhone Sales Continue Climbing Amid Buyer Confusion

eBay iPhone listings, although difficult to ascertain due to sellers using multiple categories, appear to have risen to 3,410. (This number, to the best of my ability, doesn't represent lots.)

Latest eBay worldwide summary:

• 3,410 total listings (again, most are single units, some are multiples).
• Around 600 of the 3,410 listings appear under two sellers who are acting as "aggregators." When clicking on these two listings, individual seller listings appear.
• 334 iPhone sellers claim their phones are "used," the rest "new," although many sellers continue to list their iPhones as "new" because they were "just used for a week or month." These are clearly "used" iPhones.
• 1,459 of the 3,410 are "unlocked"--43% of the total with sellers claiming that, of these, 92% are "new."
• Average sale price of "new" units overall is $528 (skewed by large numbers of iPhones for sale and 16GB iPhones that are growing rapidly on eBay)
• Average sale price of "used" units overall is $380, a significant drop from my observations during the past few weeks.

The accuracy of the total number of iPhones for sale on eBay is impacted by sellers listing in multiple categories. By far, most sellers are listing under "cell phones." But others are listing under "smartphones" and "PDA's. The majority of sellers listing under "lots" represent iPhone accessories. I doubt that many individual eBay sellers are listing in multiple categories due to the extra listing fees.

After reviewing several pages in all categories, I conclude the following:

• The vast majority of unlocked iPhone sales--new or used--reflects problems or confusion over 1.1.2 to 1.1.3 firmware issues. In many listings, sellers warn buyers not to sync with iTunes to avoid re-locking the phones. This alerts buyers who are becoming concerned about how unlocking affects iPhone functionality.
• Most sellers are listing single units, many used, from weeks to several months, indicating that buyers and sellers are becoming concerned about unlocking issues or dissatisfied with their initial purchases.
• 50%+ of of all iPhone sellers don't reveal why they're selling.
• Of those who do reveal,  a growing number of sellers claim they've bought 16GB units and therefore are selling their 4GB and 8GB models.
• The remaining sellers who reveal their reasons for selling say they are still under contract or have switched to other carriers, their companies bought them phones, relatives purchased a second iPhone as a gift plus other reasons. The validity of the claims is spurious.
• Most eBay iPhone sales listings look unprofessional. Photos, if taken, are blurred and item descriptions are hazy. Many iPhone sellers clearly don't know how to write an effective eBay listing. As a result, many of the listings I reviewed were incomplete and unconvincing.

I continue to believe the growing number of iPhone eBay listings represents a significant marketing challenge for Apple. Viewing blurred photos of scratched, unlocked iPhones and cut-off SIMS is the antithesis of Apple's slick advertising campaign.