8% of sellers and 9% of buyers had left the platform: did you expect this?

[beautifulbeauty2012]

According to news, this is what statistics show. Are you surprised? 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@inhawaii  I listened to the Q4 Conference Call. I read the ebay Q4 Report. These numbers come directly from ebay. Choose to believe whatever you like, but the source is not "the Interweb", it's ebay itself.

[valueaddedresource]

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@biggymoe wrote:

Source please?

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All of this info can be found after every quarterly earnings call on eBay's Investor page

https://investors.ebayinc.com/overview/default.aspx 

eBay Q4 21 earnings press release - https://ebay.q4cdn.com/610426115/files/doc_financials/2021/q4/Exhibit-99.1-ER-eBay-Q4-2021-Final.pdf

eBay Q4 21 earnings presentation slide deck: https://ebay.q4cdn.com/610426115/files/doc_financials/2021/q4/4Q21-EBAY-Earnings.pdf

eBay Q4 21 earnings webcast replay

[beautifulbeauty2012]

why do you call Q4 sellers tax cheaters?

[lepke1979]

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@gracieallen01 wrote:

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@lepke1979 wrote:

Not really. What was the increase in buyers/sellers in 2020/2021?

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For ebay's short-term planning, 2020 is ancient history, along with early 2021.

(personal opinion - your mileage may vary)

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That's fine, but two years ago to possibly even today depending where you're at. The main way anyone could (or would) buy anything was probably online via here or other online marketplaces. So you're going to see a huge influx of buyers. Not to mention a lot got a lot of extra money while on unemployment or stimulus checks. And more recent, the monthly child credit advancement the latter half of last year (going to probably be a lot of people surprised about getting less back this year because of that). Some I'm sure stayed, but a lot probably fell off as stuff started opening up again.

On the other side, selling online was probably the only way some people could make money since they were out of a job for one reason or another. So you'll have those that tried it out and didn't like it and left. Or just got rid of whatever they needed rid of and were done. Then there is the small percentage of people that don't want to deal with the tax stuff happening this year. Not to mention some people not liking the MP switchover. Probably wasn't a lot that left because of that, but I'm sure some did. And some maybe were not able to switch to MP at all.

So 10% of buyers and sellers left. OK...how many were gained in the last year or two? Was it a wash? Or did eBay actually lose out?

[espresso_warehouse]

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@divwido wrote:

No, not surprised.  The tax cheaters left, so what?  That leaves a whole lot people still here, still working, still buying.  Nine packages were mailed today and # 10 is sitting on my desk waiting to be packaged up for tomorrow.

Nothing has changed.

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Serious flaws in that logic. It almost seems like denial.

Tax cheaters?

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@beautifulbeauty2012  I'm not surprised, because I listened to the Q4 Conference Call, and also because in prior Quarterly Reports ebay was quite clear that it is focused on keeping and adding high value buyers, and not overly concerned about losing low value buyers. 

I don't think this will impact my own business here much at all. If I were a stockholder, I might be a little more concerned, but I don't see this hurting---or helping---my ebay business.

@lepke1979  The numbers represent a net loss of buyers and sellers. 

[dariudaudery_0]

Ebay lost sellers and buyers, took more money from fees, decreased customer support, bad updates. 

If nothing changes every report there will be less and less sellers/buyers remaining.

Sellers leave and sell elsewhere, buyers go to where they can find items that they want. More sellers leaving means more buyers leaving.

If sellers leave eBay raise fees to keep revenue up, fees go up more sellers leave. Bad strategy. 

There still are and will be more sellers leaving because of taxes, managed payments, constant bugs, fee increases, etc. How many new ones will replace old ones? Less and less since other platforms are taking more ground.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@m60driver "The data does not include details relative to high value vs low value Ebay members, a totally subjective construct"

Actually, not a subjective construct. I don't have the numbers handy, but ebay does define each group by dollar amount/# of purchases, so there is an objective definition for both. Also, I am pretty sure ebay mentioned the specific percentage increase in high value buyers in the report or the call, but I'm not going to take the time to dig for it. I think @valueaddedresource provided links, so you can dig if you'd like. 

As I said in another post, I don't think this will effect my ebay business one way or another, so I'm not concerned about it. 

[beautifulbeauty2012]

Well said.

[collectfest]

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@divwido wrote:

No, not surprised.  The tax cheaters left, so what?  That leaves a whole lot people still here, still working, still buying.  Nine packages were mailed today and # 10 is sitting on my desk waiting to be packaged up for tomorrow.

Nothing has changed.

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Please. Yeah, everybody was sitting around saying let's quit because of taxes. Doubt it, I believe more quit because of MP and vintage sellers motivated to get back to shows due to all the absurd rules, cannot do this or that, pay to play. etc.

[lepke1979]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

@lepke1979  The numbers represent a net loss of buyers and sellers. 

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Hmm, interesting.

[beautifulbeauty2012]

MP is a questionable reason. Those would had left in Q3. I don`t see why people dislike MP so much ( ebay had a glitch with MP, which affected me a couple of days ago, but it is not that bad overall, so sellers could leave only because of that).

I think the main reason is ebay doesn`t generate sales and requires tons of work constantly changing requirements - filling this and that (item details-twice in one year!). And, of course, very high fees - fee on fee and another one on the fee. Btw, from the same ebay news, all promoted listings will be charged on the total amount (now it only applies for the item, but that promoted % will be added on top of tax and shipping - same as no promoted listings get "feed". There are more fees are coming, so more sellers will leave. So sellers would have to eat up the loss of buyers, which ebay can`t attract or keep (buyers can`t find what they look for easily - is the main reason for that)

[chapeau-noir]

eBay's marketplace has been shrinking for a while, though - there was a Covid bump, but it was happening in the Before times.  IMHO, a lot is just market dispersion - eBay isn't the only show in town and hasn't been for a while.  Poshmark, for instance, grew to 80,000,000 users in the 10 years that it has been around, and for most of that time was just a buy/sell mobile app for clothing and accessories and not even global.  Now it has broadened its offerings into other sectors it's really growing.

[beautifulbeauty2012]

Yeah, I know. Posh added electronics category recently. A few more categories to add, and it will be even more competitive. The only thing I dislike about Posh is sharing, which is a must to do there. Otherwise, love prepaid Priority labels.

[chapeau-noir]

The sharing is tedious, no doubt.    😣   My electronics haven't been setting the world on fire over there - I have a feeling they want PS5s, not my old tech lol.  But it's definitely social media and sales can be like digging in hard dirt.