eBay Lays Off ~1000 Employees, CEO Blames Macroeconomic Headwinds, Expenses Outpace Growth

[valueaddedresource]

Breaking news: eBay is laying off 1,000 employees, about 9% of workforce. CEO Jamie Iannone says headcount and expenses are outpacing growth.

Exact details about specific areas affected have not been disclosed, so not sure what the impact on sellers will be yet but...this does not bode well for the Q4 report in my opinion. 👀

https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ensuring-ebays-long-term-success/

We are on a path to building a stronger eBay for the future — one that is growing, and resilient in the face of any challenge. Over the past three years, we made fundamental changes in our experiences across categories and accelerated the pace of innovation at eBay. In areas where we’re investing, we are seeing consistent increases in customer satisfaction and a meaningful improvement in our growth relative to the market.

Our strategy is the right one, but there is more we can do to ensure our success. We need to better organize our teams for speed — allowing us to be more nimble, bring like-work together, and help us make decisions more quickly. Today, I am sharing news about changes we are implementing to better position eBay for long-term, sustainable growth.

The most significant and toughest of these decisions is to reduce our current workforce by approximately 1,000 roles or an estimated 9% of full-time employees. Additionally, we plan to scale back the number of contracts we have within our alternate workforce over the coming months. These are not actions we take lightly — and we recognize the impact they will have on all eBayers. We have to say goodbye to people who have made so many important contributions to the eBay community and culture, and this isn’t easy.

The Need for Change

Despite facing external pressures, like the challenging macroeconomic environment, we know we can be better with the factors we control. While we are making progress against our strategy, our overall headcount and expenses have outpaced the growth of our business. To address this, we're implementing organizational changes that align and consolidate certain teams to improve the end-to-end experience, and better meet the needs of our customers around the world.

[blacktopautoparts]

I think the standard promoted listings work well for what they are. While many do not like them, we have gotten adjusted to them from their inception. The problem is that they are not trying to get customers through the door in an organic way and grow money organically. They keep trying to use all of PL suite to make profit off of, which is not sustainable. I've been saying this to the CSR's, managers, product managers, and growth advisors for the last few years and of course anything we say goes on deaf ears.

I've been on this platform since '99 so I have seen pretty much all of the good and bad throughout the years. I just wish that things would go back to normal for all of us so we can keep selling and not having to worry day by day what are sales are going to be like. We are a fairly sizeable store and make a decent dollar on here. Since 2022, things have gone haywire. It has been a rollercoaster ride from day to day. Good example, last week we did pretty good most of the week and then Sunday and Monday were some of the worst days we have ever had.......especially Monday, which typically is one of our better days. Then Tuesday, we had like a very good day like we were having before, and now yesterday way back down again.

I hope that they can fix all this because it does suck, this could be a really good platform. It is marred by mismanagement, our economy has been in the dumps since last year, and then add the string of bad weather issues too that have hit many of us the last few weeks. things are not looking that great this year either. If they continue to go down the path that they plan on doing, it is only going to get worse.

Good luck to everyone! 

[blacktopautoparts]

If you remember the eBay Bucks program. I still do not understand why they got rid of that, besides greed. It was such a nice incentive to get customer through the door and make multiple purchases. People did love this because they got something back for their purchases. If the current model didn't quite work anymore, they should of revamped it a bit.

Then they also had the referral link program that influencers were a part of, they nixed that at one point.

Then the issues with feedback that they just created back in May 2023, where they double downed on how they were looking at feedback. We heard so many different excuses why they were doing it, that you could not believe anything they said anymore. I can understand there were sellers that were abusing calling in to CS and getting feedback removed left and right. On the flipside, they have not left any room now to even remove feedback that is unwarranted from buyers. To make it worse, you have buyers admitting fault in eBay messaging and they are allowed to leave their feedback because it is their "OPINION". Honestly, if someone were to be a real jerk, and they had enough of unwarranted feedback, regardless of policies or not if this went to a court of law stating how badly this has affected their sales and their mentality to sell on the platform the court would look at "FACTS" and not someone's "OPINION", it would get eBay into trouble. Going back to feedback as someone stated earlier, for over 20+ years customers have been conditioned to view feedback on eBay. If someone doesn't see a high enough feedback percentage, they will move on so that is a loss of sale. Then on the flipside, we also have those that do not look at feedback, let alone look at our pictures or read descriptions, titles, ebay compatibility charts or item specifics. I guess you can look at it either way. 

It is stuff like this that has added to their downfall.

[siamjane8]

The chickens are coming home to roost.   Promoted listings was a band-aid fix for temp revenue boost that undermined the platform as a whole. We all knew it- we all saw it happening, and now we all see the results.

short term profit gimmicks to not inspire long term growth- only trust, honesty, and good product/service and consistency will provide growth- all of which ebay does very poorly in- its a people problem from the top down- 

[gloryglorygifts]

Kudos to your bil. He sounds like a good-hearted and smart businessman.  I don't see Jamie doing that any time soon tho.

The person that told me that insight was a multi-millionaire in the banking industry. I would like to think he would take a cut as well. Most I have worked for would not. As an ex-banker, I was through numerous lay offs.

[meme6253]

I think it will probably even get worse, I Hope i'm wrong!

[meme6253]

It's been hard enough to get any Help from them, & now I suspect that to get even worse!

[vintagecraze50]

I scored a lot of sales I am sure of it with that ebay bucks program. I also bought a lot more merchandise on here at that time—-GEE WHAT A CONCEPT. Occasionally, Brian Burke would pop up with a few really nice incentives as well. Usually I saw a sale or two when he came along. Thanks Brian. It worked. 

[vintagecraze50]

They do this incentive program now with Item over 300 bucks. I got two sales because of that just today. Again, GEE WHAT A CONCEPT. IT WORKS!! IT COSTS them a bit but WOW it sells.

[vintagecraze50]

You mention the economy. I used to think it WAS the economy. After all the reports I have read recently people are still spending and spending. IT is NOT the economy.

[chapeau-noir]

Particularly as the economy has not been 'in the dumps' - its growth is exceeding expectations and unemployment is at historic lows.

[sapphire_studio]

That just means the Federal Reserve is successfully going into massive amounts of more debt and full-time jobs are being converted into part-time jobs.

[downunder-61]

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@meme6253 wrote:

I think it will probably even get worse, I Hope i'm wrong!

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Yep, sometimes it is better to be wrong, but in this instance, sadly I think you are spot on.

[vintagecraze50]

People need incentives to stay loyal to a product and a website. You can do that on your own here with sales, sending offers and coupons which we did this Christmas and did generate some pretty darn good sales, BUT, it was Christmas so the masses are on here then. We also did promote at the lowest level about 3/4 of our offerings. That probably helped a lot too to get these items seen. Just the overall decline in active buyers on here is disturbing to me to the max. It makes me wonder where this website is heading in the future for me and all of us.

[vintagecraze50]

Yes, I will have to say that ebay has navigated through all these changes pretty well to stay in business. I think Wayfair just get hit recently with some bad numbers. Macy’s is closing stores. Many of these websites are floundering. It’s tough for sure.

[vintagecraze50]

Liz, eBay’s board is composed of the good ole boy’s blues brothers mafia gang. Many have been there for years and years and years. They need some fresh blood with fresh insights.