Almost two thirds of the 410 businesses polled from eBay's top 2,000 sellers list said they were confident about the future and more than three quarters planned to expand their business this year.
Mark Lewis, eBay's UK manager, said this confidence was based on their robust sales performance over the past year, with the average from his top 1,000 sellers hitting 29pc growth in the last quarter of 2008, up from 23pc in the same period of 2007.
But the online traders are not completely immune to the recession, with one in four revising down their sales growth targets and more than two thirds reporting that the cost of supplies had risen because of sterling's slide.
Many reported plans to lay off staff, with average employment across those polled expected to fall 15pc over the next three months.
Mr Lewis said these online trading businesses were still "bucking the trend" of stagnant retail sales on the high street. Some 54pc expected rising sales, while 30pc expected static sales this year.
These expectations were supported by the monthly IMRG Capgemini online retail sales index, published last week, which showed that year- on-year sales grew 13pc in February.
Mr Lewis said: "They are growing at a rate that is bucking the trend. Not only are they growing faster than retailers in general but they are accelerating."
According to the survey, which covered businesses that trade online via eBay, other platforms like Amazon and their own websites, most online traders still focus on the UK market.
Almost 90pc of the sales by the top 1,000 sellers on eBay were conducted with UK customers. European customers represented 9.4pc of total sales, with other countries representing less than 1pc.
Mr Lewis said smaller traders still found it difficult to negotiate barriers to trade, like different consumer protection laws, operated by different countries, even across the EU.
