eBay's Downfall?

[dugoldstuff]

Very interesting article. I bolded /redded the best parts:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4188922-ebay-stagnation-mode

eBay: In Stagnation Mode

Jul. 21, 2018 3:18 PM ET

eBay's second-quarter earnings report fell heavily short of analyst expectations, with revenue growth dimming to 9% y/y (from 12% y/y last quarter). The company's below-consensus guidance caused the stock to take its biggest hit. GMV growth in the U.S. also showed its weakest growth rate since a year ago, while the volume of sold items stayed flat. Margins also showed a worrying contraction.

Despite all the signals that keep pointing to its demise, eBay (EBAY), the one-time e-commerce wunderkind, continues to plod forward as if it was still a giant of the internet. Like last quarter's earnings release, eBay's Q2 post showed a company that is continually unable to meet analysts' targets as the company fails to accelerate the process of bringing new buyers to its platform.

Rightly so, eBay has been one of the worst-performing of the large-cap internet stocks all year, despite general enthusiasm for the e-commerce space. Companies like Etsy (ETSY) and Stitch Fix (SFIX) that were earlier pegged as losers, for example, have shot up meaningfully in the first half of 2018, as has perpetual giant Amazon.com (AMZN). eBay, however, seems incapable of reversing its slow decline. Year to date, the stock is down nearly 10%.

Yet, I believe the shares have further to fall. Activity on eBay seems to simply be running cold. Call it the hangover effects of eBay's fee hikes in the past several years - as sellers walked out on eBay in protestation of higher seller fees and took their variety of wares with them, buyers also saw less and less reason to buy on eBay. One of the things shoppers like most about Amazon is that it's the "everything store," where you can type in even the most obscure of items and find at least one seller that carries it. On eBay, with both the selection and volume of items getting thinner, it's getting harder and harder to bring buyers to the platform and, more importantly, reverse the steep deceleration in GMV growth.

[futuretomorrow]

@chapeau-noir

🙂

1.  Amusing ourselves to death - Neil Postman

2. The investigations into numerous retirement homes and those for the elderly "broadly" revealed a pattern of abuse and neglect but let's focus on how so many ended up there in the first place.

3. Comparative Analysis against the Caribbean, Europe and many Asian countries might reveal some startling and uncomfortable truths. In many of these countries, you don't put your elderly in retirement homes at anywhere near the same rate of America, if at all. In countries like France, which offer some of the best maternity and time off in the world for women, the elderly are actually protected as they should be.

There was no need for no.2 or 3 though. Don't personalize it as an attack in thinking "well he doesn't know how X or Y treats their parents". It's all in the outcome based evidence and facts found in Neil Postman's books (this is not at all the focus of this book so be warned) and others that specifically address this but more importantly how it happened and why other countries are very different.

Do some research for yourself when you have some time but it's easier to see the trees that make the forest when you're not from this country and aren't used to the way people here treat their parents and let's be clear, I'm not talking about immigrants but many natural born Americans. It's simply shameful.

[hillbillymedia]

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@duncanvr wrote:

I've been selling on eBay for years and the profits are now getting less and less for sellers especially small business sellers in Australia, sole traders who get charged 10% selling fee and are now slapped with a 10% tax when buying from overseas sellers. There is not much meat left on the bone, some years ago it was really good. You'd list one of a kind items and get bidding wars. Now days it only seems stuff starting real low attracts one bidder, you have to sell in high volume to break even. The fees kill any profit. The search engine is 100% hiding BIN items most of my regulars do not even notice BIN items only auctions. If the site continues to rise in cost it will be unusable within a few years. Because if a seller can't profit then what is the point of listing? When eBay manages sellers payments in the next year or two I am most certain they are going to charge a fee for collecting sellers sales money as well. I am really struggling on eBay lately to make enough sales to make it worth while. My eBay hobby business is slowly being strangled to death by money grabbing with fees and taxes. Sadly I don't see it lasting. If its like this now what are fees and the cost of using the site going to be like in several years time? They will continue to find more ways to get money out of sellers. I will keep trying but when they ditch PayPal instant payments from buyers I think that maybe end game. The bank transfers they propose to manage take 2 - 4 days to get to sellers account, great if you have 1 day handling. You ship the item before being paid? I don't like the sound of what is coming for the site. Sales are down 30% and don't seem to be recovering. Ever since Trump came to power the eBay sales have been on a slow decline. Not good for sellers at all. They have to many filters in place now on the search engine if you're items not at the top then good luck. Your item unsold in 30 days its already stale.   

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"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle" Winston Churchill

IMO this describes ebay to a tee. If I`m not selling, I`m also not buying. This generates less FVF for ebay over the long haul.

[hillbillymedia]

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@where*you*crowin wrote:

4. There is one area eBay still beats Amazon badly and is eBay's strength - used and vintage

But they are losing ground in used and vintage to other sites due to search manipulation (and other things, which is one thing ebay does well.   While they're busy manipulating, more and more sellers of those goods are busy migrating to other sites, and more of their buyers are finding them at those places.

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I agree. To top it all off, we that are currently here, won`t attempt to sell anything of a high dollar amount because of the lack of seller protection. Yet ebay still seems to be focused on New, big box, and china. Huge mistake IMO. I can buy those type of things anywhere.

[hillbillymedia]

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@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures wrote:

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@where*you*crowin wrote:

4. There is one area eBay still beats Amazon badly and is eBay's strength - used and vintage

But they are losing ground in used and vintage to other sites due to search manipulation (and other things, which is one thing ebay does well.   While they're busy manipulating, more and more sellers of those goods are busy migrating to other sites, and more of their buyers are finding them at those places.

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Sellers have always come and gone....and always will. And new sellers will join all the time as well.
Again it is an OPINION which does leave out some reality and facts...but he never said it was factual either. Only some here try to say it is.....he says it is his OPINION.
This is also true of all other sites...every single other site

And it also ignores FACTS like the mass edoduses that have happened in the past, and there were some big ones, where people said the same things...and all these years later ebay is still here.

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So is Kmart but Wal-Mart continues to crush them.

[futuretomorrow]

@hillbillymedia

Good point. The one in my area is closing and may have already closed but I haven't been to that location in a few weeks. When I did last pop in there, the good stuff was long gone and it was clear as day (by all the signs and shelves) they were closing that location, not reorganizing. 

[dugoldstuff]

> And again...you should be hoping and praying it is not anything that comes to fruition as millions of people depend on ebay to make a living and pay the bills and survive. It would devastate a lot of people....and it is not something you should even want to wish on ebay, gloat about or be right about either

Regardless of any one individual's hoping and praying, time marches forward, and industries are wiped out due to changing societal norms or technological advances. Who cries for the poor in Appalachia who lost their coal mining jobs? Who cries for the millions who lost their jobs in the graphic arts industry, wiped out when film was not longer used? Who cries for the watch repair industry after throw-away watches came into being? Who?

    No one here wants a failed eBay and destitute former sellers.  But your last sentence is hard to understand: In other words, are you saying, "If someone makes a mistake and you point it out, you shouldn't want to be right so that he/she can continue to make the mistake"?

[hillbillymedia]

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@futuretomorrow wrote:

@hillbillymedia

Good point. The one in my area is closing and may have already closed but I haven't been to that location in a few weeks. When I did last pop in there, the good stuff was long gone and it was clear as day (by all the signs and shelves) they were closing that location, not reorganizing. 

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It`s a shame. Kmart was one of the few that had the chance to compete with Wal-Mart and they are fading. Sure, there are still other competitiors but many of them are fading as well. I was rooting Kmart.

I`d love for ebay to suceed again. I just don`t see it though with the decisions they are making. Maybe they will turn it around but I don`t see it as happening if they continue to abandon their used/vintage base. I think they should embarce it again and run with it.

[futuretomorrow]

@hillbillymedia

Your last paragraph is what I wish some would simply see. Many of us don't have pom poms, jumping up and down on a couch or outside on a trampoline yelling "eBay should fail, eBay should fail". 

It's simply that there are some genuinely smart sellers here who not only understand their buyers and categories but business and economics and who can't ignore the obvious signs of what eBay has been doing to itself for over a decade now. As I mentioned in another thread recently, eBay was it's worst own enemy in many regards and there was a time they could have crushed Amazon and others but when your leadership has zero retail experience or very little, you keep changing CEO's instead of finding someone with a long-term vision and clear objectives, what's happening ends up being the unfortunate outcome of those poor decisions and lack of vision.

Many great companies have the same CEO for 20-30 years or more and some founders are still currently involved in some major capacity or at the very least then end up sitting on the BOD in the end before completely retiring. eBay, not so much.

[dugoldstuff]

> And all those other sites are also experiencing slow or no sales for some...just like ebay is.

Stats on this?

[everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures]

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@futuretomorrow wrote:

@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures

You are aware of the fact that since the 1970's entire industries have been wiped out right? Has the world plummeted into complete anarchy and chaos? 

No one is wishing ill on these millions you're referring to. Bad Karma? I'd agree...eBay has a lot coming their way and this is only the beginning.

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OH The world is ending again or is it still?? Anarchy and Chaos???
Sounds like we just went back into conspiracy theories....again
Business have always come to be while others have closed. The reality nothing is forever and never was. That did not begin in the 70's either. It has always existed...and has nothing to do with anarchy or choas.
And Karma is about what "you" put out in the universe directed at who or whatever. Does matter your reasons or justifications. Karma doesn't play the blame game and doest care if someone think something was justified or not.

[everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures]

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@dugoldstuff wrote:

> And all those other sites are also experiencing slow or no sales for some...just like ebay is.

Stats on this?

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Go look for yourself it is on every board on every site. Not hard to find if you look.
ANd there are also people complaining about the same exact things and blaming the site for the same exact things and you can even go back years...there are always some that have to blame and complain. It is all out there.
The rest are working their businesses and selling.
Just because some are slow doesn't mean everyone in the world is...and that is true on ebay as any other site.
Or you would not be ignoring the millions of transaction that happen daily and the million  being transacted. BTW...that is all data that is always ignored by those complaining because it is easier to blame than to focus on their own busineses.

[drusalina]

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@hillbillymedia wrote:

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@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures wrote:

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@where*you*crowin wrote:

4. There is one area eBay still beats Amazon badly and is eBay's strength - used and vintage

But they are losing ground in used and vintage to other sites due to search manipulation (and other things, which is one thing ebay does well.   While they're busy manipulating, more and more sellers of those goods are busy migrating to other sites, and more of their buyers are finding them at those places.

---

Sellers have always come and gone....and always will. And new sellers will join all the time as well.
Again it is an OPINION which does leave out some reality and facts...but he never said it was factual either. Only some here try to say it is.....he says it is his OPINION.
This is also true of all other sites...every single other site

And it also ignores FACTS like the mass edoduses that have happened in the past, and there were some big ones, where people said the same things...and all these years later ebay is still here.

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So is Kmart but Wal-Mart continues to crush them.

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I would rather shop at K-Mart, than Walmart.  The Clothing in Kmart is much better quality, then Walmart's, cheap trashy clothing.  K-Mart has the BEST Leggings and 100% Cotton Clothing.  Polyester is not what you wear in hot weather, and Walmart just changed all of their internal brands and have eliminated ALL clothing that is 100% Cotton.  Never bought much at Walmart for clothing anyway, except for their White Stag Brand (which Walmart bought out and have now discontinued).  Kmart's clothing and shoes are 100% better then Walmart's. Their Shop Your Way program also gives out $$ (5, 10, 15, 25 and more) if you spend money in their stores and online.  They had Fantastic Deals at Christmas, and I went Crazy buying at Christmas. 

[drusalina]

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@siayan wrote:

Whenever I try to figure out what happened to eBay I only need to think of etsy. Etsy is the company eBay built. There really should be no etsy but thanks to eBay someone had to do it. Every penny etsy earns was given to them by eBay.

I am sure there are others that owe their existence to eBay's mistakes. 

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But Etsy has now followed in eBay's footsteps and have changed their search algorithm and payment system and many people have left Etsy because of no sales.  Their boards look like eBay's, except Etsy, deletes the topics when they get too big and negative.  I left Etsy at the Beginning of 2017, because in late 2016, they change the way your items were searched and I went from many sales a month to none.  So I just added those items over here.  But now eBay has been destroyed.  Don't know where else to go....

[everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures]

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@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures wrote:

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@futuretomorrow wrote:

@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures

You are aware of the fact that since the 1970's entire industries have been wiped out right? Has the world plummeted into complete anarchy and chaos? 

No one is wishing ill on these millions you're referring to. Bad Karma? I'd agree...eBay has a lot coming their way and this is only the beginning.

---

OH The world is ending again or is it still?? Anarchy and Chaos???
Sounds like we just went back into conspiracy theories....again
Business have always come to be while others have closed. The reality nothing is forever and never was. That did not begin in the 70's either. It has always existed...and has nothing to do with anarchy or choas.
And Karma is about what "you" put out in the universe directed at who or whatever. Does matter your reasons or justifications. Karma doesn't play the blame game and doest care if someone think something was justified or not.

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To add...what you think is anarchy and chaos...is the coming to be of social media andthat did not start in the 70's and a generational shift to where some people now think that opinions on it are facts...and not opinions and this generation is also of some that think they are owned something by everyone else and take no responsibility for anything. And because they can find others that believe and blame the same ways. All of which doesn't make for a fact....just people that no longer know what facts are.

[futuretomorrow]

@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures

Thanks for clarifying your logic and how you view things. Good luck and best wishes to you.