In the course of the Europe-wide lockdown at the beginning of 2020, monitored developments on online platforms for months. We wanted to know: are puppy ads going up? Do you lose weight? Many of the animals from the illegal trade are imported to Germany from Eastern European puppy factories and then mostly sold on online platforms such as ebay classifieds or Quoka.
You can download the detailed Corona Report here.
As assumed, corona-related border closures and stricter controls have massively hampered the illegal puppy trade from Eastern Europe, which is mainly carried out via online platforms.
While the advertising business on the online classifieds portals increased significantly in almost all other categories as a result of the local business closures, the market for dogs collapsed. In April 2020, the number of dog ads on online portals such as eBay classifieds and Quoka fell by more than 69 percent in some cases, especially for popular trend breeds such as Labrador retrievers, French bulldogs and Chihuahuas.
On Quoka, Pomeranian ads alone were down 77.65 percent. In just four weeks, from March 26th to April 29th, 2020, the number of advertisements for dogs on both classifieds portals fell by an average of 24.18 percent.
But after the first easing of the border closures in May 2020, there were signs of an increase in dog sales advertisements. In particular, trend dog breeds were increasingly offered.
On eBay Classifieds, the number of French bulldogs increased by 18.9 percent, for pugs even by 22.2 percent. In mid-June, just two weeks after the border was opened, the number of puppy ads on ebay classifieds had already risen by 17.40 percent and by 11 percent on Quoka.
For trend dog breeds such as Pugs and Pomeranians, the dog adverts increased significantly by 57.14 percent and 41.94 percent in the first 14 days after the end of the lockdown alone (in the period from June 14th to June 26th, 2020). From late June to mid-August, the number of puppy ads on Quoka and eBay classifieds continued to rise steadily. In just seven weeks, the total number of puppy listings on ebay classifieds and Quoka grew another 48 percent.