eBay's mixed picture

[chapeaunoir]

And possibly one reason they're not in the 'conversation' about future ecommerce platforms: 

www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/ebay-marketplace-shrinks

I think Etsy, for all of their big success story, is having this 'bifurcated' experience, too, only it's not new user/current user, but traditional sellers/new commodities mass market sellers. Etsy's marketplace IS growing, but most of the gains that are causing them to be darlings of Wall St are also in seller services (higher fees, promoted listings), but also in offering Ali-express type mass manufacturing (drop shipping from printing companies, mass imports, etc.), under the guise of 'manufacturing partners.'  (I think this latter started out with good intentions but Josh is too interested in his ebayification of Etsy, really, to care much about all the drop shipping from China. I wonder how the actual Chinese crafters and small studios think about this - they have quite a few legit Hong Kong tailors selling excellent items there). 

[somany]

“Despite shrinking GMV, the company reported growing revenues as it increased the transaction take rate from 7.9% to 8.7%. Promoted Listings service was a significant contributor to increasing revenue, bringing in $65 million in revenue, up nearly 110% year-over-year. eBay believes Promoted Listings and yet to be launched CPC advertising will become a billion-dollar business in the future.

eBay is extracting more revenue from the stalling marketplace - sellers are paying more in fees to get the same sales. All while the marketplace reached 180 million global active buyers, up from 171 million last year.

eBay wants new shoppers who don’t want eBay, but to provide the eBay they would want, eBay loses existing shoppers. Pick one. Instead of picking one, eBay is serving new users a structured data based shopping experience, and existing users are still getting the historical experience. Devin Wenig, CEO of eBay, said they “effectively bifurcated the experience.” It is working as a temporary fix, but the platform needs a cohesive vision.

Growing revenues are pleasing investors, but nothing else yet puts eBay in the conversation on the future of online retail. As Sarah Halzack and Shira Ovide at Bloomberg put it “How can a company be both the second-place player in its fast-growing industry – and largely excluded from the conversation about the future of said industry?” In 2019 eBay will process over $90 billion in GMV worldwide, but it won’t be in any headlines.”

“Sellers are paying more in fees to get the same sales.” Wow, they’re not even trying to sugarcoat it.

[kritter]

And there is the issue. They can't keep depending on raising rates for sellers to make their quarterly numbers.

That is not growing the business.

[val2525]

Promoted Listings service was a significant contributor to increasing revenue, bringing in $65 million in revenue, up nearly 110% year-over-year. eBay believes Promoted Listings and yet to be launched CPC advertising will become a billion-dollar business in the future.


There you have it. eBay admitting PL is a shell game.

[chapeaunoir]

This is like building castles on sand. Grade inflation has also permeated corporate culture, so now if you don't post double-digit gains every year, something is wrong - it leads to artificial 'growth' by simply increasing fees rather than the growing marketplace itself.

There's only a finite amount of 'growth' you can get out of any marketplace, then you run out of, you know, customers, and have to start cannibalizing the market itself.