Here is one reason why Sales are down for 2022

[guardian6c]

• EBay has lost almost $2 Billion Dollars in the past 9 months.
• EBay net income/loss for the quarter ending September 30, 2022 was $-1.941B, a 116.68% decline year-over-year.

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@mam98031 wrote:

I have posted links up thread.  A few years ago I believe the number of active sellers was 25 million worldwide.  At some point it dropped to 19 million.  I'm not sure when that happened, but it wasn't in the last couple of years.

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@mam98031  eBay's own quarterly reports show exactly when that happened - Q2 2021.

All relevant documents can be downloaded and viewed directly from eBay.

https://investors.ebayinc.com/financial-information/financial-summary/default.aspx

Q1 2021 - 20M Active Sellers

Q2 2021 - 19M Active Sellers

Q3 2021 - 19M Active Sellers

Q4 2021 - 17M Active Sellers

If that's not  good enough for you, here's CNBC also quoting the 17M for Q4 2021.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/23/ebay-earnings-q4-2021.html

So yes, we do know exactly when it dropped to 19M and then further dropped to 17M and yes it was within the last year and a half.

We don't know what it has been since Q4 2021 because eBay has not publicly stated it anywhere since that time (again, that I'm aware of) - if you have a source for any numbers that actually cover any point in 2022, please share it.

If not, then respectfully I would suggest at the very least you need to revise your statements to 17M to match the last publicly reported numbers from eBay and be upfront that those numbers are from Q4 2021.

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@farmalljr wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

I provided the links.  I wasn't trying to hide a thing.  Again if you have preferred data to share, feel free to do so.

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You keep using 2019 numbers. I remember the thread where another poster had corrected you and gave you the links to the updated information. eBay has admitted itself, there are not 19 million users anymore. The last report a year ago was 17 million. 

I think the point was that you keep spouting old, inaccurate numbers. Is it to make eBay look like they are doing better than they are, or do you just refuse to get informed about the truth? And isn't eBay also closing down another market in the middle east? If so, that's even more users gone. 

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Thanks @farmalljr  - you're absolutely right, the information is right there on eBay's investor page for anyone who cares to be informed to see.

And yes, eBay is shutting down their marketplace in Turkey, GittiGidiyor. They have not said how many sellers will be lost because of it, to my knowledge, but have said it will represent a loss of about 4M buyers.

https://investors.ebayinc.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2022/eBay-to-Close-GittiGidiyor-Op... 

[farmalljr]

OUCH! 4 million more gone of only about 17 million now (or whatever that number actually is) is a huge chunk of buyers. 

Losing about 50% of your users over a half decade is a very bad sign. 

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@farmalljr wrote:

OUCH! 4 million more gone of only about 17 million now (or whatever that number actually is) is a huge chunk of buyers. 

Losing about 50% of your users over a half decade is a very bad sign. 

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@farmalljr  just to avoid confusion, that would be 4 million buyers gone, not sellers.

17M is the last reported number of active sellers in Q4 2021.

Here's what the active buyer numbers look like, both with and without GittiGidiyor.

Q3 2022 report for active buyers was 135M total, 133M excluding GittiGidiyor.

[mam98031]

For those interested.

https://www.businessofapps.com/data/ebay-statistics/

https://www.helium10.com/blog/selling-on-ebay/

[chapeau-noir]

Wow! So we're back to 2013 insofar as active sellers.  Then again, the etailing landscape is much, much larger with greater competition.  This tracks.

ETA:  I wonder how large of an administrative superstructure the declining platform is supporting, including over-paid C-suiters?  

[mam98031]

Well that makes is sound terrible when in fact we are talking about a difference of 700,000 sellers.  Still an important number, but to me not surprising since we gain more than that during the pandemic.  Now many of those sellers don't have the need or desire to sell on Ebay anymore.

[dbfolks166mt]

How does the fact that eBay's expenses exceed their income affect whether people buy on the platform? Amazon lost money for a decade or more.

     In Amazon's case that was by design and the losses only reflected on paper. Amazon basically grew the company through investments and expansion. At the same time they avoided paying any income taxes by showing losses year after year. There are a LOT of companies that do the same thing. 

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@mam98031 wrote:

For those interested.

https://www.businessofapps.com/data/ebay-statistics/

https://www.helium10.com/blog/selling-on-ebay/

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@mam98031  and again for those interested, that site has not been updated to reflect any of the changes that occurred when eBay redefined GMV and just in that one picture they have conflicting information.

First it says: eBay had 18 million active sellers on the platform in 2021, then in the chart it says 19 Million 2021 - which is it?

Then they do not link to any sources at all for 18.3M in 2022 - "company data and eBay forums"...ok but where? There is no company data that I'm aware of that has given any active seller figures for 2022 and I we all know if you search these forums for answers to any question it's not 100% certain the information you find will be accurate.

Sorry but that does not look like a reliable source to me, or at least not one I would trust over eBay's own quarterly filings.

The Helium article you posted says "As of 2022, there are 159 million active users and over 19 million sellers have accounts on eBay." however, follow that link and goes back to your previous link from edesk which as I already said pulled that 19M stat from other sources all of which were quoting the Q3 2021 quarterly report.

Just as one example, the very first link that article gives as a source for that data is 

https://expandedramblings.com/index.php/ebay-stats/

That site shows 19M Active sellers and last updated 1/29/22, so you'd think that means 19M at that time right?

They link to eBay's investor page as a source, which oddly enough today no longer shows Active Seller stats.

https://investors.ebayinc.com/fast-facts/default.aspx 

But what did that page look like back on 1/29/22 when they linked to it? The closest I could find in the Internet Archive was 2/1/22.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220201021845/https://investors.ebayinc.com/fast-facts/default.aspx

Sure enough it does say 19M but that's because it was still showing Q3 2021 info since Q4 2021 earnings had not been released at that time.

Q4 2021 earnings were released on 2/23/22 and that investors page was updated to show the 17M - here is the archive from 3/1/22.

If we're going to pull info from blogs instead of trusting eBay's quarterly filings then here's one from Channel Advisor that quotes the 17M from Q4 2021.

https://www.channeladvisor.com/au/blog/marketplaces/ebay-statistics-funfacts/

If you prefer to continue quoting outdated sources using information from Q3 2021 that's your prerogative, but out of respect for the rest of the community and to avoid confusion, at least be honest that is where your data is coming from.

Again I will ask, do you have a reliable source citing active seller data directly from eBay that actually covers any time in 2022?

[farmalljr]

I'm sorry, but I find this debate hilarious. You have one poster showing the most recent updated numbers, posted by eBay for it's legal filings. 

Then you have another posters posting numbers from blog sites. Blog sites.. LOL. Really?! I could pull numbers from a blog site to say "NO, that number is actually 21 million". Sure at one time it WAS, but that is not a reflection of NOW, and touting that 21M number is not truth when it's being represented as stats for TODAY. 

None of us really know what the number is NOW. But the last report eBay made WAS 17 million. That's by eBay's own admission. 17 million is less than 19 million.  I mean, was this all necessary? Why was it necessary to act like the poster citing the 17M and it's source, was trying to make up fake news? Why is it so hard to accept the number is less than 19 million? 

I would think one would rather be accurate in what they say, rather than just demanding to be "right".  I don't find it helpful at all to be fed inaccurate information. And I find it telling if a poster is shown where to get the accurate information, but instead they refuse to learn and keep spouting false and misleading "facts". 

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

Wow! So we're back to 2013 insofar as active sellers.  Then again, the etailing landscape is much, much larger with greater competition.  This tracks.

ETA:  I wonder how large of an administrative superstructure the declining platform is supporting, including over-paid C-suiters?  

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@chapeau-noir unfortunately it's really difficult to make any kind of apples to apples comparisons so far back now, due to eBay's changing definition of GMV at the end of 2021.

https://investors.ebayinc.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2021/eBay-Announces-Change-to-Gros...

Some people might think that's just about GMV, not active sellers, but it's all connected.

Previously, eBay defined GMV as "Total value of all successfully closed transactions between users on our platforms during the period regardless of whether the buyer and seller actually consummated the transaction. 

They also defined active buyers and active sellers using the same terms "successfully closed a transaction on our platforms within the previous 12-month period"

Historically, "closed" transactions included auctions that were won or items that "sold" but were never paid for or subsequently canceled - closed simply meant it had a status of sold.

When eBay redefined GMV at the end of 2021, they changed it to be paid transactions only, which also changed the definition of active buyer and active seller.

The Q4 2021 report said:

Gross merchandise volume (GMV) was $20.7 billion, down 10% on an as-reported basis

Annual active buyers declined by 9%, for a total of 147 million global active buyers.
Annual active sellers declined by 8%, for a total of 17 million global active sellers.

It defined those terms as:

All sellers who received payment for a transaction on our platforms within the previous 12-month period. Sellers may register more than once, and as a result, may have more than one account.

All buyers who paid for a transaction on our platforms within the previous 12-month period. Buyers may register more than once, and as a result, may have more than one account.

Gross Merchandise Volume consists of the total value of all paid transactions between users on our platforms during the applicable period inclusive of shipping fees and taxes.

For reasons I mentioned upthread, I'm not sure that chart is a reliable source, but even if those numbers are accurate, it's not an apples to apples comparison from now to 2013 because the definition of what was being counted changed.

In the GMV section of that site, they are clearly still using the old numbers, not the recast numbers back to 2018 from when eBay changed the definition, so at the very least I believe that site is not displaying the most up to date accurate data.

[laserpartshq2]

Maybe EBAY should stop hating it's customers...........

[valueaddedresource]

And just in case anyone would like yet another source for the 17M active sellers as of Q4 2021 - eBay Main Street also put it in their 2021 Global Transparency Report which was released in April 2022.

https://www.ebaymainstreet.com/sites/default/files/2022-04/ebay_Transparency-Report-2022_Letter_Soci...

[mam98031]

I have no clue as to why you continue to want to argue the stats with me.  I posted what I did.  You don't like it, fine.  I didn't create the numbers.  

"again for those interested, that site has not been updated to reflect any of the changes that occurred when eBay redefined GMV and just in that one picture they have conflicting information."  You seem to just want to disagree when the GMV change has NOTHING to do with the number of sellers.

So enjoy and post whatever you'd like.  It has nothing to do with me or what I posted.   I have no need or desire to continue this conversation.

[mam98031]

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@laserpartshq2 wrote:

Maybe EBAY should stop hating it's customers...........

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They don't.  Keep in mind that Ebay has to keep both buyers and sellers happy.  They are both of equal importance even though some sellers would disagree.  But without sellers there is no need for buyers and without buyers there is no need for sellers.  It is a two way street.