EBay's profits fell 29 percent in 2019 compared to the year before...

[forecastledistributors]

That should cheer up the stockholders. 🙂

[chapeau-noir]

https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/sales-on-ebay-in-the-us-down-9

The author generally crunches numbers but they can reveal interesting things.

[gracieallen01]

Close today - $34.58 - dn $1.63 (-4.50%)

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Right....that's why I feel those of us selling the old, vintage and unusual stuff have an advantage, at least in that respect.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Yes, the US marketplace decline is a percentage that should keep even an interim CEO up at night. It would be interesting to know which categories were hardest hit by that decline, and which suffered least.

[chapeau-noir]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
Yes, the US marketplace decline is a percentage that should keep even an interim CEO up at night. It would be interesting to know which categories were hardest hit by that decline, and which suffered least.

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I'd love to see a breakdown - a statistical one, that is, not a site-wide one.

[cpyzz]

eBay continues to falter as the ridiculous continuation of gouging sellers and allowing fake and fraudulent sellers from Asia to dominate its listings.  They're downward spiral was inevitable as they increasingly put pressure on Top Rated sellers over the past five years.   All the Top Rated sellers started heading for the exits when eBay first increased return duration, next they cut the TR discount in half.  Then, not good enough they increase the return duration again.  Still not being good enough, let's make'em give free returns, yeah that's the ticket.  No wait, how about we make everything GTC and that way we can double or triple our listing fees and really get'em good.

And of course that doesn't even address the fact that if you'd like to grow your business that you have started from scratch eBay puts the Full Stop on your choices of eBay Stores.  I have requested over the years to PLEASE put stepping stones from the Premium to Anchor Stores something (even one, preferably two) that would bridge the gap between 1,000 and 10,000 listings and $60/mo for yearly commitment versus $330/mo/yr.  Why don't you make a commitment to your sellers?

One last point, the ability to carry on a meaningful conversation with your customer service is non-existent.  I don't want to hear how sorry you are, I already know that, very sorry.  It doesn't help me that your sorry and it doesn't help me that I can't talk to someone who might be able to help me because you will forward my concerns at you next staff meeting.

STOP GOUGING AND START LISTENING TO YOUR SELLERS - YOU MIGHT LEARN HOW TO TURN IT AROUND!!

[gracieallen01]

Apparently, according to EB, the ebay GMV declined 8% in the US in the 4th quarter.  I guess that was indicated during the earnings call.  Transcript of the conference call is available on the 'net.

[wolfbyte]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-28/ebay-gives-lackluster-forecast-following-manageme...

[chapeau-noir]

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@wolfbyte wrote:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-28/ebay-gives-lackluster-forecast-following-manageme...

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Oh lawdy, after reading that I stumbled on "The One" - the $500,000,000 mansion - what an eyesore.  I might just jump this time line for a while.

[mam98031]

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@academy2 wrote:
Other sites are irrelevant. We are discussing ebay. 2018-no tax on ebay 2019-tax on ebay

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IMHO I don't think so.  If you want to relate lower sales on Ebay due to the fact that they have to charge sales tax in 38 states, then the same would have to hold true for other similar sites.  That is just logical to me.

[vintagecraze50]

The stockholders I guess are betting on short term gains to line their pockets. Buying back stock with all the money from STUB HUB? Seems like the Letter for improvements in the website might be not on their minds. Not really good new here.

[mam98031]

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@gracieallen01 wrote:

Apparently, according to EB, the ebay GMV declined 8% in the US in the 4th quarter.  I guess that was indicated during the earnings call.  Transcript of the conference call is available on the 'net.

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IMHO GMV had to start going down because it is getting way too scary to sell high $$ items here with the current state of the Return system.  The return system took a dramatic change in October 2018 to this Simplified Return Process.  This new policy has proven to be very financially damaging to many sellers.

And it is said all the times on various threads that selling high $$ value items here is extremely risky business.

So to me it is logical that the GMV has gone down.  But keep in mind that this may not mean that the number of transactions on Ebay has gone down overall.  It could be that smaller $$ value transactions have gone up while higher $$ transactions have gone down.  I certainly don't know that to me the case.  I have no stats to share with anyone.  I'm just saying more and more sellers may be realizing they don't want to risk high $$ value items on this site due to current policies that don't protect them at all.

Just another way to look at that number.  Food for thought.

[vintagecraze50]

I think also that there are so many places to buy stuff on the internet now that the competition is just too much. Things that you could only find here have gone to Etsy, Mercari, Poshmark. Two of these websites have been advertising non stop and must be paying for more adds on Google.  Some of these websites offer more simplified listings and better pricing. A lot is going on.

[vintagecraze50]

Tax is not relevant here because everywhere tax has been collected. I agree.

[vintagecraze50]

According to the article I read on this post, people are not buying more expensive items becuase when they see the sales tax on those they abandon the purchase more now. They are doing that here I guess, but where else because that big fat sales tax is on every site for these items.