There’s a stack of reportage out there regarding eBay’s second quarter results last week. I’ve picked out a few choice cuts I think serious eBay sellers should read.
For a reasoned and sober, high level investor view, the Wall Street Journal’s summary is very digestable.
Bloomberg takes a less sunny view noting in particular that growth has slowed at eBay Inc. (linking that to the data breach) and competition in the sector is growing significantly.
And this short piece from Venturebeat concentrates on why PayPal saved the day for the corporation.
Looking for more detailed comment, I always read Scot Wingo’s review over at Channel Advisor because he considers the results from a seller perspective and always reflects on the numbers.
Now, he has resisted comment on the hack and the reported Google downgrade but he does note that eBay is not performing as well as ecommerce as a whole. That’s bad news but his piece is well worth five minutes of your time and a cuppa.
And I know many people are interested in the reported Google downgrade in organic search. Like many of you, I suspect it to be significant.
I’ve gotta note that I have asked Tamebay’s contacts at eBay formally about the downgrade over the last 6 weeks or so and they have been consistent.
It’s not that they haven’t given me comment that I think worth mentioning: they haven’t even acknowledged the enquiries. Make of that what you will.
For eBay to comment on this set of quarterly results the message had to be: we’re fine! And they have been able to tell that story. PayPal’s results are stellar.
But on the marketplaces results, I think we all need to be more circumspect and wait. I suspect we’ll see the story of the hack and mass password change take slightly longer to unravel.
There’s a bullet out there that has been dodged. But it will inevitably hit something eventually. Or someone.
5 Responses
No doubt Final Value Fees on shipping has contributed greatly to their earnings.
I would estimate that up to approximately 10% of these revenues can be directly attributed to FVF on shipping. Clearly eBay had to find some way to deliver shareholder value and this is how they did it.
FVF on shipping is both legally and ethically questionable.
It is obviously outrageous but who can stop them?
As I always say, dance the tune or find another party!
The beast reigns!!
Has anyone outside of eBay had a single shred of credible evidence that any ‘hack’ actually existed?
Are there any figures that show how much of Paypal’s revenue is from Ebay sales?
I’d assume that the percentage figure is falling.
Also this is an Ebay Inc report, so including postage on FVFs in the UK is probably not massively significant. FVFs already apply on postage in the US and other countries too.