In the eBay Q2 2019 Earnings call eBay reported that their Marketplace platform (excluding Stubhub and Classifieds) delivered $2.2 billion of revenue and $21.5 billion of GMV. Marketplace revenue growth was 1% on an as-reported basis and 3% on a FX-Neutral basis. However on the downside GMV was down 5% on an as-reported basis and down 1% on a FX-Neutral basis.
“We remained focused on building our active buyer base, delivering outstanding customer experiences, and accelerating our growth initiatives in the second quarter. Managed payments continues to exceed expectations, while first party advertising is providing significant benefits to sellers, and new features are making our marketplace easier to use.”
– Devin Wenig, President and CEO, eBay Inc
In the second quarter, eBay grew active buyers by 4% across its platforms, for a total of 182 million global active buyers. This has remained steady for the past year as reported on the eBay Q2 2019 Earnings call, with 4% more active buyers each quarter since Q1 2018 when the number was 171 million global active buyers.
eBay accelerated adoption of eBay Managed Payments with over 6,000 sellers now opted into the program. They saw $270 million of GMV during the quarter, an increase of 24% quarter-over-quarter that brings the total GMV since launch to $636 million. The PayPal integration for all enrolled US sellers is complete and the offering in Germany is on track to be live by the end of 2019, pending regulatory approval.
First-party advertising (eBay Promoted Listings) continued on an impressive growth trajectory. In the second quarter, over 940,000 sellers leveraged first-party advertising to promote over 250 million listings, resulting in $89 million of revenue, a year-over-year growth rate of over 130%. This is both good news and bad news – Promoted listings are working for those sellers that use them but at a cost – it’s additional fees for visibility and margins are constantly being squeezed, not just on eBay but also by ancillary services from third parties and carriers.
On the eBay Q2 2019 Earnings call with investors, eBay reported recent updates to the marketplace, including new pages that transformed previously unstructured listings into a more intuitive set of product results, the eBay.com Brand Outlet, and simplified US returns process to more customers. New seller features were announced to increase buyer conversion including Buy Again, Trending in Your Interests and an expanded Offers to Buyers. The Volume Pricing user interface was dramatically improved, making it much easier for sellers to offer volume-based discounts and for buyers to act on those discounts. In addition, eBay introduced new APIs that will give third-party developers access to managed payments, Promoted Listings and Login with eBay.
Devin declined to comment on a possible sell off of eBay Classifieds and Stubhub due to activist investors.
11 Responses
Revenue still showing almost no growth, GMV down yet again. As always they claim buyer growth. Everyone must be buying a lot more really cheap junk for that to be true. Same old spew from Wenig. But still they get their usual stock pump after earnings. Extra money for the eBay executives that way when they sell off more of their insider shares! For a company that shows little growth, no prospects for future growth, and always declining GMV, eBay and it’s stock always seems to be golden. Rampant funny business involved in this company methinks. And even with all this, eBay stock compared to it’s competitors is crap. Go figure.
Well with the listings now completely stuffed with cheap Chinese knocks off what do they expect? Doesn’t matter how you search… there they all are clogging up the page. Search UK only? Still massive of them claiming to be in the UK. Nop matter what you put under search it still puts the promoted listings first… Strange as i thought everything was about the buyer, so when i put uk only… i don’t expect the top listings to all be from China. Wasting my time.
Of course ebays reply would be it’s not our fault, we blame UK sellers for not promoting enough stuff!
If I am totally honest with my buyers head on rather than my seller head on… Ebays has become dreadful for buying. As i have said, the listings are clogged with cheap chinese tat, either that or the rampant spread of drop shippers etc using amazon prime to sell cheaper and ship faster. Yet look at the feedback and it is obvious they don’t care or even know what they are selling! The search function brings up the most irrelevent things, often first displaying items which i scratch my head at trying to work out why they have been displayed. It often ignores complete catogories for no real reason unless I then go and select them purposely… yet other times displays items in all catogories, it’s like a guessing game!
So as a buyer i have to sum up with… it is not a pleasant experience and if i wasn’t a long term user i would proberly give it a few goes then pass over to amazon etc.
Ebay don’t care as they just see throughput… more buyers you say? Yes but are they just replacing ones that have been lost… and are they spending, not once, but repeat times? Making more money? well yes, you are hiking fees and making discounts harder to get.
Pretty stagnant figures against a booming industry don’t look good, and as anyone in business will tell you, if you aren’t moving forward, then you are on a slippery slope. Sad for ebay really as the answers are all there… it just needs them to get their heads out of the sand, see them and implement them.
Amazon 46% of the e-commerce biz and eBay 6%….They are filling their coffers by charging us all more to sell LESS.
They also DO not care what is being promoted FAKE or what as long as you are filling their pockets…
Plus is this STILL the only photo that exists of this person.
Just been lamenting much lower profits on eBay – obviously, lower turnover and much higher fees is the answer. It is getting very close to the tipping point now, where it is just not worth doing anymore…………
@SAM Here’s another photo for you with Devin. It’s at Walker’s West, a high-end exclusive bar Devin and eBay built to recreate the original Walker’s in New York City. Devin’s favorite of course, so he needed to spend $Millions to replicate it at eBay headquarters in San Jose. Quite a waste of company money don’t you think? Invest money back into the company and marketplace to make improvements? Nah, that’s not what it’s all about at eBay. Can’t you just see Devin and his cronies meeting there getting all sauced up to come up with more policies and changes that are gonna screw everyone over.? Devin the eBay pirate. It’s fitting.
@Chris Dawson Any chance you can use this photo? lol I didn’t think so…
https://www.instagram.com/p/BbADivrjgTj/
Ebay execs won’t care a monkeys
What you guys dribble on about ,they wont even know you exist
So Whats the point, its just boring
Predictable story now with Ebay.
Ebay: We’re selling less, but we’re making more money. By taking more off sellers.
Managed payments will also hit sellers of low value items, because they are going to pay a transaction fee on EACH item in an order. You sell five cheap items in an order and Ebay sucks the bucks not once, not twice, not three times, not four times, but FIVE times. And they will take a percentage cut as well, just because they can. Nice. No wonder they’re placing so much emphasis on this to the markets.
And promoted listings? Pay more to sell, er, less. Because once everybody does it, you are no better off, but paying more for the “privilege” of selling on Ebay.
Does Ebay want to be left with just Chinese sellers and cut-throat merchants?
Listen up, Wenig. Stop gouging sellers and go full time at GM so someone competent can take over at Ebay.