ebay reports Q4 2023 results today Feb 27th
For those who are interested in this stuff.
I'm expecting to hear GMV was basically flat, revenue, if up, was due primarily to first party ads , little or no mention of buyer and seller numbers (with the possible exception of some numbers for "enthusiast" buyers), and "our strategy is working" but we face "headwinds"....
But, those are just guesses. We'll know soon enough.
If you don't have the time to delve into this on your own, you can always check the summary that will be posted to the Value added resource blog later ....
46 comments
broto_64
·2 years agoThe real reason I stay away from Q reports is I lack the ability to stay calm in the face of the mass amounts of delusional spew that comes from the upper echelon, mostly the CEO... I am baffled every day how these individuals even have a job, the fact that people even want them in that position, clearly I am the one lacking in vision here but then I reckon I still work for a living.
wilsonharborsales
·2 years agoJamie and the team are doing great. eBay smashed earnings again ðŸ‘
theteamsetguy
·2 years ago@wilsonharborsales ,
Wall Street likes their numbers. Stock up 7.88% today.
valueaddedresource
·2 years agoIn case you didn't get to listen to the whole call, I know some around here will get a good laugh out of envisioning Jamie kicking back after a long, hard day sweating away to earn those millions in annual comp and reading the message boards to cheer him on with how much we all love the AI features. 😂
toomuchstuffagain35
·2 years agoAs I already knew, delusional.
So now their customers are the sellers? As sellers are the ones using AI to list (IF they do).
Exactly WHEN was the last time ebay sped up the listing process rather than making it longer and more tedious?
go-bad-chicken
·2 years agoOf course he does. The boards are eBay's own in house exit polls.
nuclearomen
·2 years agoidk, pay no attention really to those reports anymore. For me the facts are in my activity/sales, don't need read all their (often bloated) facts.
In hine sight, sales have been better past Q or 2 from past years horridness. I believe they finally ironed out some of the site visibility and PL issues, others wise sales would have been continuously slow. Growth on the other hand is something still struggling with but I'll take better sales per month from previous months past year for now and be happy.
broto_64
·2 years agoYeh, I recently purchased a few things on Temu, they do have a knack for displaying things I had not seen... Not that they are so unusual, it's that other sites don't focus on these particular things and the price appears attractive enough... However, put in a little more time and I see that ebay holds a lot of these items too, just have to do a search and then lo and behold I found ebay was even cheaper on several items.
I don't doubt that Temu will create some competition, however a lot is left to be seen yet, specifically how their product returns and refund department holds up... If they fail in the returns department (as I experienced with certain other chinese wholesalers in the past) then they're not likely to get many return buyers after a few get burned on their refunds, only time will tell.
reallynicestamps
·2 years agoI took a look at Temu Canada and found the prices similar to those at WalMart for the things I was searching, (tee shirts in 3X) .
It may be that they are supplying Canada through the US warehouses which would increase their costs.
At the moment it seems that advertising and publicity are a lot of the reason for the buzz.
valueaddedresource
·2 years agoAnyone else notice how heavily Jamie was "leaning in" on consumer to consumer (C2C) initiatives in Germany? 👀
I've been seeing signs that eBay may be pivoting back to a broader consumer-seller focus (and away from the more narrow "high value vertical focus" over the last month, including some interesting new job openings and reports that Chief Business and Strategy Officer Stefanie Jay may have resigned following last month's layoffs.
The fact that eBay is doing a "promotional" trial of fee free listing and selling for private (C2C) sellers in the UK through April is interesting as well - if it goes well, we may see it become permanent like the changes eBay made in Germany last year.
When Jamie took the helm in 2020, his initial "tech-led reimagination" strategy specifically called out the need to capitalize on eBay's robust C2C platform, seeing consumer to consumer selling as the foundation of the company's success.
https://investors.ebayinc.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2020/eBay-Inc-Names-Jamie-Iannone-Chief-Executive-Officer/
He took those sentiments even further in an interview with CNBC in July 2020, saying getting back to individual consumer selling and becoming the "seller platform of choice" were among his top priorities for the company, along with focusing on key core vertical categories for growth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duSNA802I-8&t=40s
But shortly thereafter, consumer selling and being the seller platform of choice faded to the background as eBay pursued the more narrowly focused vertical, "high value, enthusiast buyer" strategy that has left a lot of sellers feeling excluded and abandoned.
This earnings call marked the most I've heard Jamie talk about C2C since mid-2020. While he is carefully trying to position it as just the next logical step to apply things they've learned from the "focus verticals" and an extension of their existing strategy that he claims is and has been working, I think it's likely a much bigger pivot than he is letting on and eBay may finally be being forced to reckon with the idea that the strategy they have pursued the last few years really isn't working as well as they want everyone to believe.
Too early to tell if/when any of that might filter to the US market and what it will look like if it does, but one of the open job positions is explicitly for a Director, US C2C Selling, so I think it's fair to say at the very least we can expect some changes "coming soon."
https://jobs.ebayinc.com/us/en/job/R0061999/Director-US-C2C-Selling
This role is responsible for providing a single point of leadership and direction for the C2C strategy and execution plan within the US market. It will also be accountable for the value proposition and healthy growth of the business within the designated competitive landscape. Finally, this will be a key interface connecting Global product, Marketing, Pricing, Finance and Local teams to ensure the contribution of C2C to the overall US eBay business performance.
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
OP2 years agoIf you look at the changes ebay has been making on the dot com site, there has been no new focus category since street wear, which is really just an offshoot of the existing sneakers category....the appeal is largely to the same buyer base. Most of the changes ebay has been working on are what Jamie calls "horizontal changes"....changes that are designed to benefit sellers ---- and buyers----in all categories. (Things like immediate payments on offers). So I think to a degree this can be considered recognition that perhaps there has been an overemphasis on focus categories, at the expense of the site as a whole. So far, however, this hasn't translated to a change in marketing strategy---that remains focused on the Verticals, at the expense of the rest of us. And the focus on first party ads as a revenue generator....rather than GMV growth....continues to weigh heavily on the seller base, particularly many of the c to c sellers.
Jamie also noted that ebay's best defense against sites like Temu is a combination of organic traffic (rather than a heavy reliance on , say, Google, whose ad prices have been driven much higher by Temu) and its Enthusiast Buyer/Focus Category strategy, which does not (in Jamie's view) directly compete with Temu.
So, just a guess, but ebay won't abandon the current Enthusiast/ Focus Buyer strategy , nor its dependence on Ads....but I think we will continue to see more effort allotted to the "horizontal", which should benefit c to c sellers. If ebay begins to finally market the site as a whole, or some of the non focus categories , in an effort to improve c to c selling, that will definitely get my attention.
I suspect ebay is aware that it has been losing some of its c to c seller base to other venues, perhaps rapidly, and Jamie has maybe realized he can no longer take the base for granted, which ebay could do even just a few years ago. There are just too many competing venues for c to c sellers today, and ebay can really not afford to treat them as an afterthought these days. Becoming the "platform of choice" for those sellers (and buyers) is going to be a real challenge, and IF they can succeed, they could do very well indeed.
frugality_inc
·2 years agoRaises dividend, lays off employees.
This company is garbage.
kenneth686321
·2 years agoEbay's still doing just fine considering the broader economic environment.
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
OP2 years ago@kenneth686321
I agree. ebay is no where near collapse, despite what some YouTubers and others might say.
Of course, that doesn't mean I agree with everything ebay is doing, but as an ebay seller, I'm not worried about the company suddenly going under.
reallynicestamps
·2 years agoI really don't understand how share repurchases work. Is the idea that the company gets to keep that much more profit to expand and /or upgrade rather than pay out profit as dividends?
How many shareholders will be dividing those dividends? Put another way, what will be the dividend for Q4/2023?
Here we go: 27c per share up from the last quarter.
https://seekingalpha.com/news/4072594-ebay-inc-declares-missing-dividend
Apparently the value of each share rose, so shareholders are happy with the company.
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/ebay-inc.-q4-profit-increases-beats-estimates
theteamsetguy
·2 years agoI really don't understand how share repurchases work. Is the idea that the company gets to keep that much more profit to expand and /or upgrade rather than pay out profit as dividends?
@reallynicestamps ,
As a investor when you purchase shares in a publicly traded company like eBay you are buying a share of the company profits. For simplicity sake lets say a company makes 5 million dollars after taxes a year and there are 1 million shares of stock for the company outstanding. In this case each share would stock would be entitled to $5.00 of the profits. Depending on the industry the company is in, the average stock trades at around 20 times the company's profits or $100.00 per share in this example.
Now let say the same company spends 3 million dollars on a share buy back at $100.00 each. After the buy back, instead of having 1 million shares of stock outstanding to divide up the profits there is 970,000. (30,000 x $100.00 equal 3 million) Assuming the company made the same 5.25 million dollars the next year instead of being entitled to $5.00 per share in profits each of the remaining 970,000 shares would be entitled to $5.42. (5.25 million divided by 970,000 equals $5.42) If the company stock still trades at 20 times profits per share they would going for $108.40.
As the number of shares of the company's stock shrinks each share's piece of the profits goes up causing the stock's value to go up. This is why shareholders including myself look to invest in companies that are buying back a lot of their company stock on consistent basis. (example Home Depot, Meta (Facebook), Apple, Pepsi, and McDonalds, are examples of companies that I own that buy back a lot of stock each year.)
Hope this helps. There is nothing evil about stock buy backs if executed properly. Properly meaning they still invest in the company and there employees. Example Home Depot raises the dividends every year and buys back a bunch of stock. They also gave employees sizable wage increases last year.
tobaccocardyahoo
·2 years ago@theteamsetguy
Share buybacks are some of the most intelligent uses of capital.
When a company decides that it cannot generate enough profit by reinvesting their capital in the business, it buys back its stock increasing the value to shareholders who can find a better return on their investment.
The multiples many stocks sell at are based on return on investment that can only be generated by growth. Buybacks help avoid the crash that a drop in growth rate can cause.
theteamsetguy
·2 years ago@tobaccocardyahoo ,
You are correct my friend. Warren Buffet didn't get to be one of the world's richest people making dumb investment decision. He loves buying stock in companies that are buyback machines such as Apple. He is by far the largest individual shareholder of Apple stock. He has finally started selling because the value keeps on going up and it has now surpassed 50% of his portfolio.
The Home Depot has bought back and retired 30% of its share in the last 10 years and the price of its stock has almost quadrupled over the same time period. The dividends has done the same thing. The annual dividend has gone from $1.88 to $9.00 per share. Stock price went from $104 to $376 per share. I've been riding the Home Depot train since 1993 and it been a great ride.
tobaccocardyahoo
·2 years ago@theteamsetguy
Buffet has started selling some of his Apple shares according to reports in the last two weeks.
Today, we see one of the potential reasons, Apple has pulled the plug on its EV development project. A several billion dollar write off.
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
OP2 years agoebay press release for Q4 report is here:
https://ebay.q4cdn.com/610426115/files/doc_financials/2023/q4/Exhibit-99-1-ER-eBay-Q4-2023-FINAL.pdf
(as a pdf file)
and here is a quick look at eps and revenue:
reported fourth quarter EPS of $1.07, $0.04 better than the analyst estimate of $1.03. Revenue for the quarter came in at $2.6B versus the consensus estimate of $2.51B.
eBay sees Q1 2024 EPS of $1.19-$1.23 versus the analyst consensus of $1.13.
eBay sees Q1 2024 revenue of $2.50B-$2.54B versus the analyst consensus of $2.53B.
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
OP2 years agolink to non pdf press release:
https://investors.ebayinc.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2024/eBay-Inc.-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2023-Results/default.aspx
slippinjimmy
·2 years agoJust skimming the info......
Global GMV up 2%, basically flat when adjusted for FX
US GMV flat
International GMV up 4%
Active users down 2%
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
OP2 years ago@slippinjimmy Pretty much as expected...from what I can see ,not terrible, actually pretty steady, but honestly, not a lot of forward momentum aside from ad revenue. (that's just a quick look)
dhbookds
·2 years agoTemu is a HUGE on line seller........thousands of items, most very cheap in price. All unbranded, From China though delivery is guaranteed in about 2 wks or less. housewares to cute clothes and lots in between.......some fairly good selling tactics.....spin the wheel, get % off, only 4 hrs left, selling out FAST, etc. Don't want to tout them....but you should look....
Think I read that Congress is concerned about them........
@mam98031
slippinjimmy
·2 years agoOne thing I rarely see mentioned is the "Temu effect", Temu is sucking up buyers and their money like a mega vaccum. They are taking all of that away from all the other ecommerce sites especially Amazon, Walmart and eBay and maybe to a lesser extent etsy.
The full Temu effect as far as eBay user numbers probably won't show up until later this year when buyers that have moved there in 2023 start entering the "no activity in the past 12 months" zone.
mam98031
·2 years agoWould you please describe what Temu is? I remember seeing all their commercials during the Super Bowl, but I'm not sure I understand what the app is all about.
@slippinjimmy
slippinjimmy
·2 years agoThe Temu app was the number one download from Google and Apple in 2023, over 250 MILLION downloads.
Temu, based in China is a marketplace pretty much restricted to manufacturers in China with Temu handling all the logistics. For North America fulfillment is based in California. There has been some chatter that they may open up for American brands/sellers.
Temu is owned by Pinduoduo Inc, they are well on their way to become the largest ecommerce company in the world. Current market cap is about US170 Billion, more than 4 times the market cap of eBay. They have been active in China since 2015 and had a GMV of US$383B in 2021.
Originally they were a China only operation dealing almost entirely in direct to consumer sales of agricultural products, the Temu subsidiary started in 2019.
It's possible they will exceed Amazon's GMV this year or next. It has been reported that they spent about 3 Billion US Dollars in marketing in the past year and may have been the single largest advertiser during this years Super Bowl.
monster-deals
·2 years agoYa'll forgot to mention Temu ships your order in a black garbage bag wrapped in tape.
First time I ordered on Temu I did it as a lark expecting it to all be trash and boy was I surprised that I ended up not hating a single thing I ordered.
Did it again...ordered about a dozen different tiki mugs. Expected nothing but trash again. I did not get trash.
farmalljr
·2 years agoI don't know why that keeps getting repeated. It's not true at all. I have ordered several times now from them. My wife has as well. It's shipped directly from China, and lands in New York and goes through customs. If you live on the west coast, maybe it lands there and is run through customs there. There is NO warehouse that "orders" are run through. All of the orders from my household have been fulfilled in China and shipped to the US. Not saying Temu doesn't have some warehouse or whatever here to receive returns, but all products ship from China.
Other than that, yes I agree Temu is a giant. I do not shop a whole lot from China direct sites, since Fast Tech went kaput. I don't care all that much for Aliexpress, as they are more expensive and slower to get your stuff to you. Lots of site out there, but none seem to be as large as Temu.
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoI've never heard of a North American fulfillment center, either, so I'm curious as to where this is. In fact, a great deal of Temu's success lies in NOT having a particular fulfillment center, but decentralized logistics between seller/manufacturer who ships direct to the individual buyer, coordinated by Temu. This small-packet, decentralized model helps them ship under de minimis trade exception where all packages are beneath the $800 customs threshold (for the US) and not dutiable. They don't stock in the US because shipping in bulk to a warehouse for fulfillment would defeat the purpose, and they deal with something like 100,000 different manufacturers.
They do have a US headquarters in Boston.
reallynicestamps
·2 years agobut decentralized logistics between seller/manufacturer who ships direct to the individual buyer, coordinated by Temu. This small-packet, decentralized model helps them ship under de minimis trade exception where all packages are beneath the $800 customs threshold (for the US) and not dutiable.
Reminds me of a startup circa 1995 called AuctionWeb.
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoIt's curious because it's a ton of little small manufacturers (of which China has TONS - they've been manufacturing for millennia and there is nothing they don't know about it) selling to individual people through Temu, so it is really like eBay.
ETA: And I can tell you, they have stuff that you'd never find around here. I purchase mostly clothing - they have streetwear that makes Supreme, etc., look stupid.
farmalljr
·2 years agoThat is not how I understand Temu to operate. From what I know, they ARE a giant warehouse in China that manufactures send products to, Temu pulls off the shelf, and packs in their own bags. They then send it out to buyers. There may be some local manufactures that send daily to Temu, by my orders are always pulled and packed in about a day. Fast tech used to be one that they waited on manufactures to send the product to them, before packing and shipping to buyers. Temu is much better in those respects. They either have it on hand, or it's out of stock.
I've noticed that out of stocks sometimes become back in stock after a month. This would make sense to me Temu is shipping from their own shelves and not waiting for product to ship out, like other sellers do.
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoWould you please describe what Temu is? I remember seeing all their commercials during the Super Bowl, but I'm not sure I understand what the app is all about.
Temu is a new Chinese e-commerce company that started in 2023. It is operated by the Chinese e-commerce company PDD Holdings. It offers heavily discounted consumer goods which are mostly shipped to consumers directly from China.
ittybitnot
·2 years agoWould you please describe what Temu is?
@mam98031
mam98031
·2 years ago@ittybitnot
Thank you for the info. This question was answered a few times towards the beginning of the thread, but thank you again.
retro_entertainment_collectibles
·2 years agoSHEIN is another in textiles, but yeah my friend... Web competition has grown up with a variety of models. Other POS like WhatSnot <--- HA! Poshiegra' etc. That atop the big retailers now all going "Web is Frontline" versus sideline, yeah... Been saying it for months, "Competition for the dollar."
In Brick & Mortar their applying AI across store, regional demand to cut down or ramp up towards overstock or under supply in retail store backends, warehousing and more. AI is being developed by handfuls of development houses around the globe to identify retail arbitrage literally taking video and recording of people at retail locations. AI compares to other retail outlets like say Three Walmart or Best Buy stores and that becomes yet another gray area. Sure they can reserve the right to do business but the step farther becomes very gray.
If Gamestop sent employee's raiding Walmart Game whatever sales then turn around and resell that online or in stores that's a predatory practice. Yet online, me going to Walmart snarfing up the Black Friday Game Specials and listing them out at Amazon is a what? Amazon didn't send me to Walmart but the exact same reasons WHY its deemed predatory between Walmart and Gamestop example exist yet I am the predator per se.
Now I've also read that there's some sorts of toying with QR codes to identify where product ends up. But when you think about ok, "QR Code for Walmart #477" gets printed on boxes? That makes NO sense at all or perhaps even domain related, Domain #32 encompassing Boston and outlaying areas. Still makes no sense. What happens products delist? Pretty unlikely everything gonna be destroyed or packaging strip go on right? Back in the day some that happen, probably still does.
For example when we'd been in the PC Software delist channels ya see those requirements of us or things come to us stripped of retail packaging. In other words we be told by the publisher that if you buy any of these you need strip retail packaging or make sure the retailer pricing labels are gone as sometimes those affixed right at point of manufacturer, Walmart that was common same with CompUSA. That is to say unsold mastercases of product returned to publishers distributor as it all consign under Net terms complete master cases not even opened, still sealed. So we buy and it comes with CompUSA pricing tags all over it that we'd have to strip off.
Now that said I've asked some PolyTickle's just out of my own curiosity about arbitrage numbers which I understand be a rather hard gig to come up with amounts. I've only one response and that data I was told is a 2018 estimate between 30 and 40 billion dollars and this is major retailers not minors, thrifts etc. To me that seems rather high but... Well but?
Your a smart fella, think that number out of the question? Obscene? Wonder what it is now?
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoThis is all true. Temu is already impacting Etsy, and I'm wondering how fast that will accelerate. There is already a lot from Ali-Express on the site, and sellers on Etsy are now reporting seeing Temu products there - I expect if Etsy admin doesn't do something about that site, it'll turn into Temetsy. I actually purchase from Temu from time to time and have found service to be reliable, and offering items I can't find anywhere else.
Anyway, I know that's already on the radar for Etsy.
tobaccocardyahoo
·2 years ago@slippinjimmy
In spite of the oft touted numbers for Temu consider this WSJ article
https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/temus-u-s-entry-is-an-orange-flag-for-etsy-957adb29?st=io4ssttzfwanv1t&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Particular interesting is
"Temu’s success isn’t inevitable. If the platform’s main appeal is that its goods are dirt cheap, then U.S. sellers may find it difficult to compete on the platform to begin with. And while Temu has been effective at capturing U.S. customers, it hasn’t been as successful at luring them back for a second purchase. While over 30% of customers who shopped on Temu in September returned a month later, only 14% of them came back four months later, according to KeyBanc Capital Markets, which also found that churn rates have been increasing over time"
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoI think those they do capture and keep may be those 'enthusiast buyers' that CEO Jamie wants - it's really addicting shopping there.
tobaccocardyahoo
·2 years agoYou could be right but that was the story of Ebay in the growth years, and is now why Ebay is not growing and the auction portion of the site is well past its prime.
I predict that Temu will probably affect Etsy and the smaller marketplaces in the next 12 months to a large extent.
It is hard to believe that most Ebay sellers other than the sellers of cheap Chinese products could meet the expectations of Temu buyers. An influx of typical Ebay sellers would probably blunt the appeal of Temu.
For many cheap Chinese products, there is no way to go any lower than the prices on Ebay. There is nothing on Temu that appeals to me. But there never was anything on Home Shopping Club that appealed to me, and addicts were created.
My wife has made some purchases on Wayfair. IMO they are crap. In the interest of marital harmony, they were not returned. Temu strikes me as a step down from Wayfair. If we have a recession or stagflation, Temu will look more like a winner, but my hope is that we will not have either.
Shain, on the other hand, strikes me as a godsend for young workers in a time of declining wages, which some economists say we are already seeing.
retro_entertainment_collectibles
·2 years agoI've bought a few things at MeMu LOL, no problems. But there are sellers here buying there an upping prices. For example when this Chainsaw sharpening Jig hit the market I bought one only to find a 300% here than there. Same with some wood screws. If any of that mission critical I'd probably paid through the snout at home depot. The Jig works fine if one care take an hour and half to sharpen the chain, the screws I've ordered from both eBay or Temu well... Like I said, not mission critical thankfully.
Shein has a very interesting production model in that they design clothes at times with ripped off patterns from others. But they have hundreds of small textile operations in China when the clothes are made. This allows them to test market different things and if they are good sellers they can instantly ramp production in big fashion (no pun). If a given item is a looser they've not vested much into whatever it is. The companies advertising model is mostly social media gifting away clothes whereby influencers take the "Hauls" and model/comment on them in front of their followers.
Things in the world "is what they is" my friend as 98% of America is still blind as a bat (baseball not rodent) as at least the rodent edition thinks. Last week I posted an sort of, "What need know about the border" on this rather large political forum I've been asked step back into sorta/kinda. They even want me open my Tweeter ("X Tweeter!") back up but well... Thats real work! Ya' get every fruit cup both fresh, pre-packaged and in years of rot. Regardless to say the poll I put out 72 hours after my post which had thousands and thousands of reasoned and New ADHD (N Ah duh? Huh duh?) was rather startling. About 35% actually learned something rather than simply responding like Drone Bee's.
Ya' know my friend I always thought that the lions share of adult America was forward thinking at least one or two steps! Yet the last seven years have proven me WAY WRONG and I'm beginning to think much of the Insect and Coral Reef world have it all goin' on in comparison to American adults these days.
farmalljr
·2 years agoI think that article sites statistics that it chooses for it's agenda. All of the girls my wife works with shop on Temu and Shein. They all return over and over. I have not heard anyone around me that shopped there that said much anything bad about the stuff they got or said they would not shop there again. I'm pretty sure way more than 30% of the people that shop Temu return more often then the article wants to lead you to believe.
Here is something for you to chew on. Most stuff is made in China. I can buy buckles from US based retailers or I can buy from China based sellers. Same product and quality, but about 1/10 to 1/4 the price of US based sellers. Should I pay 12 bucks for a buckle or 1.99? I choose 1.99....
The problem US retailers have is, the products are made in China. There is no advantage for me to buy from them. A large retailer will buy product for way less than I can buy from China directly. But I can still cut my costs significantly for the parts and pieces I need.
Clothing is another thing people can cut costs on, ordering direct from China, rather than buying from a US based retailer. The article just seems slanted that they want to make China direct sellers seem like a passing fad. It's been a thing for quite some time now. People aren't stupid and like bargains.
It akin to the market for fakes. Loads of people want those luxury things, but can't or won't pay the price. This is why places like DH Gate have been so successful.
Temu may not last forever, but buying direct from China is here to stay, unless there is some law passed that stops the commerce flow. All people want cheap goods. I have not heard anyone yet begging for bread to be $300 a loaf, or T-shirts to be 1K each. Consumers can't consume unless it's cheap/affordable. No one is running over car dealers for 100K trucks, when the average wage is far below that.