eBay Sales, Buyers, Sellers Drop in Q4, But Revenue Grows 5%

by: comments

The decline in buyers and sellers are likely due to their combating the amazon resellers and making it harder for them to pump and dump accounts and betray buyer trust in the process.

I think this will bring back brand loyalty in the end. The sellers that have been declining are not the good kind.

Ebay still needs to go on an apology tour for the treatment of good sellers by past movement. I think that would go a lot further then nickel and dime price hikes.

I hope though out the year they will go even harder on the amazon resellers.

by: WaLK-aWAY

I find it ridiculously hard to imagine investors "Really" believing these stock reports.
These are the financial facts, because "EbAY" said so?

I have a feeling the REAL info will be revealed 24 hours before the company fully implodes,... and only THEN will the disgruntled law suits pour in and they will be investigated. Worth the ticket price for the show in any event.

by: terry55

ebay revenue up 5% but sales dropped 10%, that is the reason ebay won't go after the USPS twice yearly rate increase, its the only real profit ebay is making.  

by: RL15

Iannone says "improved the seller and buyer experience"

just how has the seller experience improved?

by: I Must be Crazy

I don't think there is much positive to say about the numbers that eBay reported. Sure revenues are up, but at what cost? GMV down 10 percent. Sellers down 8 percent. That trajectory is not sustainable. Time will tell what is motivating buyer decline. But one needs to remember that the fallout from the changes in 1099 reporting has yet to happen.

For years, eBay management has been engaging in the well worn trick of estimate low and exceed. Taking this, along with share repurchase schemes, we can see this is a company that is in reverse. The example of GE comes to mind. Once a Wall Street darling, this past year went through a 1 for 10 reverse stock split after the price dropped below $10/share. Ebay is headed the same direction.

Investors have beat the stock down after hours to $50 and change. Interested to see what tomorrow brings. Big dummies have been repurchasing stock as it keeps falling. Talk about a waste of cash.

by: Frank Abagnale

For years ebay sellers accused ebay of hiding their listings or for having "rolling blackouts". Lately, ebay has been accused of hiding listings from sellers who don't use promoted listings. Ebay's response was that it didn't manipulate listings because, "the more money ebay sellers make, the more money ebay makes". Not any more.  

by: Shanna

Revenue in the 4th quarter was up for only one reason, USPS's holiday rates. Ebay makes money on the front and the back, first for their commission for selling inflated postage, then charging a FVF on that inflated postage.

by: pace306

If you read the tea leaves - you can see eBays continued bad performance - Im surprised that Jimmy isnt 1/2 out the door by now.

Revenue ONLY increased due to eBay games - CPC, promoted listings, getting money from makers to boot sellers they dont like, getting money from sellers they do like - who they include in promos, money holds on sellers, "hidden profits on cc processing" etc. Its NOT from revenue off MORE sales - and they admit it.

eBay isnt dead - it just jumped the shark. The days of people buying almost anything from eBay magic youtube geniuses (old crap from garage sales and Goodwill) is long over aka jumped the shark.

eBay lacks vision and GOOD management - they are just coasting now and coming up with hair brained schemes to placate WS.

Sellers leave from the abuse. Buyers leave cause the same goods are available on Posh and Mercari (eBay no longer has an exclusive on sellers and their items) but eBay keeps squeezing the lemon to make sure it can get every drop of juice ...

Too many games, too little in return, difficult listing procedures, more communication, the constant 24/7/365 war on sellers ... "and he beat goes on".

by: Michael in BC

Nice to see there are "147 million" active buyers.  Some of my listings get an amazingly high views count of 6.  So does that mean that 146,999,994 "active buyers" have no interest in my items, or does it mean that 146,999,994 "active buyers" are unable to find my listings in search because (a) they're buried on search page 18,202, or (b) they're not shown at all because I haven't paid an extra 10% vig to promote them ?  

by: The End

Yes, Ebay stock is down over $25 since late October 2021.
Signaling a major shift in acceptable venue behavior.

by: Fried Chicken Addiction

Revenue is up from what country? China? Lets circle back here this time next year when all the unknowing sellers in the U.S.A get  those surprise 1099's...
Then lets circle back in 2024, that'll be fun.
As for me I quit selling and buying on January first. I also have not shipped a thing since then so Ebay and the post office is getting nothing from me. I started selling on eBay in 1999 when it first got rolling. 100% positive feedback. I was a great seller....I got no severance package, nothing.

by: DontpaytheIRS

@Michael in BC

B

by: Whatever

ditto everything Pace said

by: MichaelP

For me, the most disappointing thing about selling on eBay is that there is seemingly no way to grow my business beyond a few sales per day. I've tried everything I can think of except for paid advertising, which I refuse to participate in. For about the past year, those three sales per day have turned into only two.

It feels like eBay has a death grip around my neck. No matter how many listings I put on eBay (or how low I price them), if I list one thing and it starts selling then other established listings will stop selling to compensate, leaving me where I started.

I've been selling on eBay "full time" for about 10 years, and I've found it seemingly impossible to sell any more than I have all along. It doesn't matter that my feedback is excellent, that my prices are very competitive, that my rating in "Best Match" is almost always very, very good, or that I have double the listings that I had before.

I'm sure eBay likes to promote those stories about people striking it rich by selling on eBay. The cold harsh reality, though, is that that's extremely unlikely and it's much, much more likely that you won't make it very far.

by: DingDong

This first thing that comes to mind is the posting of sellers that are complaining of eBay holding onto their money for longer times than even 7 days.  I am sure that is part of where they are making their money off the holding of sellers money beyond the time allowed.

Etsy should really be making money with their 75% reserves off sellers too.

They were great platforms until greed enters.

by: Rexford

How many times has it been said here that eBay's model of bleeding sellers while hiding their listings, raising their fees, pushing sellers' listings to the bottom of search if they don't pay eBay's Ads ransom, and using algorithms to control sellers' sales was unsustainable?   Numbers don't lie.

Perhaps the eBay cheerleaders can paint us a rainbow and the activist investors can shout "off with their heads".

by: EDJS

The truth has yet to come out. CEO gave out a HUGE LINE OF BS for anyone gullible enough to believe it. Stock is down 33% since the last ""update"" Sellers are leaving the sinking ship before they go down with it. They have deleted item specifics on hundreds of my listings and keep sending emails saying my listings are missing required or recommended item specifics. They claim it is a bug and will have it fixed within 90 days. What an insulting joke. Since September 2021 and getting worse. They deleted a category and changed to a different one on hundreds more which deleted all the item specifics in those categories too. They are really good at wasting my time aka wasting my money on top of gouging all the sellers on fees and hiding listings (which I have proved to them) if you don't buy into the promoted listing scams. What GREEDBAY is doing is called the Peter principle in business. If they had continued with how they were doing things ten years ago, they would be doing great and still growing.  

by: pace306

Michael’s statements on the state of eBay is %1000 correct!

Unless one is willing to dump a box car full of cash in Jimmys office, you simply can’t get ahead as a seller.

How much of a margin do the people running eBay, think sellers make on items? Where do they think sellers get items from?

eBays lack of vision stems from these factors

Grandmas attic sellers have 1 set of margins, Goodwill sellers another, and sellers like myself and others who source deals (ie close outs etc) another.

I know I don’t have the %50-60 margins others have. Where should CPC and advertising on eBay just to be seen come from? And is it even fair?

My items are new in box/package - I’m a “cheaper account “ for them since I dont have customer service issues……..like others do.

eBay plainly has way more sellers then buyers - they compensate by giving every seller a small taste… but how can you grow your business this way????

ebay isn’t organically growing period, and the numbers show it in a stark reality.

by: I Must be Crazy

@MichaelP

My experience with eBay is same as yours. I could have written your comments. Full time for ten years; sales never go up. There are wild short term swings high to low along the way. But at year end the total settles into a very tight range of the prior years'.

For 4 years between 2017 and 2020, my total cash received each year fell within a .5 percent range of each. One half of one percent. How is that even possible without some manipulation on the part of eBay? The problem is, if you cannot increase the top line, the bottom line...what you earn...shrinks every year due to increasing costs. My income has been declining every year for 5 years.

At the start of 2020 (before we knew about a pandemic), I told myself that if the year's total came in at my "range" or rather "ceiling", that would be it for me. Well, guess what? Despite nearly doubling listings, despite record sales during the covid wave, my total for the year was just $242 higher than the prior year. My net income declined by $2300. True to myself, I put eBay on the back burner, earned a masters degree during 2021, and am now looking for a new career.

I have piles of inventory and will continue selling but it will be a sideline to build up my retirement savings. I share this to affirm what many sellers are experiencing with eBay. Moral of the story, is have a backup, be it another site, new business model, or a new career. You don't want to be on the deck of the SS eBay as the ship slowly sinks below the surface.

by: NYSteve

gee, increased GMV, but decreased buyers and sellers...wonder where they are getting that extra income from???

signed,
click ads are such a scam