The eBay website is celebrating the arrival of its second online British millionaire and its growing economic importance, with the introduction of a survey charting the volume of business.

The first of a series of surveys that could provide further insight into the boom and add to the existing data from the British Retail Consortium, the CBI and the Office of National Statistics, is due shortly.

Mark Radcliffe who used £200 he had saved from his wages as a trainee manager at Tesco to start his eBay shop 10 years ago, has joined Jamie Murray in the ranks of individual eBay millionaires.

Cardiff-based Mr Murray secured his millionaire status by building up sales of mobile phones and electronic accessories over the last three years to now pull in £2m a year.

He employs eight people but sees no need to develop a traditional network of shops because of his online success with BMCdigital. In the run-up to Christmas, his December sales were worth £230,000 compared with a monthly average of £120,000 during the year.

Mr Radcliffe, who started his business First2save in a garden shed in Southport, has built up an electronic accessories business with sales of more than £5m a year. He is eBay's biggest-selling business in Britain with 36,000 monthly orders and ranks sixth in the international league table.

He has 6,000 different product lines and is looking to expand from his current 10,000 sq ft warehouse to a building with three times the space. He is also seeking to increase staff numbers from 19 to 34.

More attention is being focused on the internet as an economic indicator because this is the first time online shopping has been faced with recession.

The latest eBay data also shows how online exporters are taking advantage of the weaker pound.

In January alone 244,000 British-based sellers generated £57m in export business, an increase of 49pc on a year earlier. They sold 2.4m items, a 40pc year-on-year improvement.

Small businesses are estimated to have achieved a 10pc rise in export sales by value and 13pc in volume terms in January, compared to December levels.

By Roland Gribben