eBay

dugoldstuff · ‎07-22-2018

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.

grayirongolf · ‎07-23-2018

It's a sellers market & eBay is still in a favor the buyer mentality. eBay needs to get to A professional immediately if they want this to work out. Its no longer Spend, Spend ,Spend. Its a time of savings.

sharingtheland · ‎07-23-2018

@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures wrote:
@dugoldstuff wrote:
> And all those other sites are also experiencing slow or no sales for some...just like ebay is.

Stats on this?
Go look for yourself it is on every board on every site. Not hard to find if you look.

Now you're using message boards on ecommerce sites as statistical proof for the slow sales you say are happening on those sites?

No one here wants ebay to fail; I suggest you spend time learning your audience.

Sherry

=^.^= =^.^=
( ) ( )
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everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures · ‎07-23-2018

It is a buyers market and has been for sometime now. And people are not saving so much anymore but they are spending differently on different things. This has been reported on sooo many financial sites/papers etc over the last few years.
Consumer spending is not all based on ecommerce sites like ebay or amazon.

everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures · ‎07-23-2018

@sharingtheland wrote:
@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures wrote:
@dugoldstuff wrote:
> And all those other sites are also experiencing slow or no sales for some...just like ebay is.

Stats on this?
Go look for yourself it is on every board on every site. Not hard to find if you look.

Now you're using message boards on ecommerce sites as statistical proof for the slow sales you say are happening on those sites?

No one here wants ebay to fail; I suggest you spend time learning your audience.

No using it as it is being used here.(by some...not all.)
You cannot provide stats on most things you have claimed nor do you look at the reailty of what exists everywhere on everysite. You just want to/tried use an OPINION article, which is also not fact...Itis OPINION and SPECULATION which you are also ingnoring....and you did not do this because you want ebay to succeed either.

drusalina · ‎07-23-2018

The millennials are buying on Amazon. eBay has been trying to sell the Next Big Thing on eBay without having their own inventory. But instead of catering to the people who actually buy here they have slowly and effectively destroyed the sales of items to the sellers and buyers who built eBay.

Change the channel!

sharingtheland · ‎07-23-2018

@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures wrote:
It is a buyers market and has been for sometime now. And people are not saving so much anymore but they are spending differently on different things. This has been reported on sooo many financial sites/papers etc over the last few years.
Consumer spending is not all based on ecommerce sites like ebay or amazon.

Of course consumer spending is not all based on ecommerce sites. I don't think anyone here ever said that.

Obviously, people here are concerned and post about ecommerce because, well, that's what we do.

Sherry

=^.^= =^.^=
( ) ( )
" " =^.^= " "

sharingtheland · ‎07-23-2018

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

@sharingtheland wrote:
@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures wrote:
@dugoldstuff wrote:
> And all those other sites are also experiencing slow or no sales for some...just like ebay is.

Stats on this?
Go look for yourself it is on every board on every site. Not hard to find if you look.

Now you're using message boards on ecommerce sites as statistical proof for the slow sales you say are happening on those sites?

No one here wants ebay to fail; I suggest you spend time learning your audience.
No using it as it is being used here.(by some...not all.)
You cannot provide stats on most things you have claimed nor do you look at the reailty of what exists everywhere on everysite. You just want to/tried use an OPINION article, which is also not fact...Itis OPINION and SPECULATION which you are also ingnoring....and you did not do this because you want ebay to succeed either.

Excuse me? Are you talking to me? I haven't "claimed" anything and I haven't tried to use an opionion article to point out how much I want ebay to fail.

You are the one that brought up message boards on other sites.

Take a deep breath and slow down your fingers ...

Sherry

=^.^= =^.^=
( ) ( )
" " =^.^= " "

futuretomorrow · ‎07-23-2018

@sharingtheland

I think they're referring to me and a few others but I've already thanked them for their time because when we cite hard data, qualitative or quantitative, it's chalked up to everyone having an opinion. Just go back and look at most of their responses for yourself and notice how many times they regard almost every response as an "opinion" and usually in caps for emphasis.

I guess my failure was in not responding with dense data sets and analytics from the tools I use versus posting it in a way everyone could wrap his or her heads around since it is, after all, a discussion board.

Just last year alone I used these "opinions" of mine to save one company $34,000/annually and another I implemented the companies first repository for a design system on the agency side. That second client is one of America's largest healthcare providers but hey, I only have opinions, no hard facts.

The truth has few friends but many enemies.
No one is perfect, though a mirror and the right clothes may make some think otherwise.

baantiques · ‎07-23-2018

@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures wrote:
As the articles says...it is his OPINION....and he did throw in some facts which is what in part he is basing his OPINION on.
Everyone has one of those opinion things BTW.
It is also called speculations.

It is an interesting OPINION article...but no more or less so than any other.
And nothing you can use as facts...just something you may think supports your own OPINION.

Funny thing about these articles is next week his opinion could change

Every analyst article is an opinion. Every rating is an opinion. Those opinions may be based on facts, some more than others, and some may be the result of a principled analysis of available facts, but they are all just opinion. I tend not to give much weight to anything from Seeking Alpha.

That said, as an investor, I would not touch Ebay. They are profitable, but their earnings, ROE, and revenue growth trail the industry averages by significant amounts. The stock is cheap compared to other internet stocks, but it's cheap for a reason.

kathieskorner · ‎07-23-2018

First of all, this article was written from the perspective of the investor, and since spinning off paypal - the cash cow for ebay - the stock has been in stagnation mode. No surprise there. Ebay just announced the layoff of 300 employees - with revenue and GMV not growing enough to increase the bottom line they are trying to cut expenses to meet the street's expectations.

The root of ebay's problems has been one of leadership starting with JD in 2007. Not only did he not understand what made ebay unique in a growing ecommerce world, but he overlooked the opportunities the recession provided ebay. IT has always been a problem for ebay, and buying paypal was the only real effort ebay made to deal with their IT problems. Instead of fixing problems, their IT staff has always been devoted to adding lipstick to the pig. Continual search engine changes have always seemed to make things worse, not better.

Vintage, used, and unique were ebay's trademarks until the company went public, and JD came along and made them dirty words. There was a reason ebay motors was given its own space, and ebay express failed, but ebay's leadership learned nothing from either. Instead of sticking to their roots, ebay management decided to play follow the leader, and continues to do so with every change they make today. There hasn't been any innovation since the early days, but there have been many that have tried to copy ebay with varying degrees of success.

I am not optimistic about ebay's long term future - management seems to keep digging the company into a deeper hole, and many of us old timers will soon be gone. I'll keep plugging along looking for homes for my vintage stuff, because it's too tough to learn any new tricks. And I won't be investing in any ebay stock - never have.

everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures · ‎07-23-2018

@aislynkat wrote:
@retrose1 wrote:
@dugoldstuff wrote:
> Not to mention the fact that they choose to play hide and seek with the variety that remains on ebay.

eBay seems to think that without supply, there can somehow be demand, and even more hilarious, a transaction.
ebay seems to think that all buyers want is the same stuff that every other site is selling.

Besides hiding stuff, ebay has forgotten a very important fact. That sellers are also buyer and buyers often become sellers. Everything ebay does drives more and more sellers off ebay, and if selling is their business, they start setting up shop on other sites. And if the sellers leave ebay because they feel victimized, it is doubtful that they will buy on ebay.

And when buyers fall for the it's sooooo eeeeeasy to sell on ebay - just list, sell and get paid, and get scammed out of the cash they needed to pay emergency bills with, that's money they don't have to spend on ebay anymore AND since they lost money on ebay and ebay did nothing to help them, it is doubtful that they will be shopping on ebay again.
Yes, this. The more I’m Mistreated as a seller, the more I stop myself from buying on ebay.

And you are exaggerating a bit, well actually a lot...not all sales are to scammers nor are all buyers scammers and it is not even close to factual to suggest otherwise. It is a scare tactic that some use to suggest such things to that extreme.
There is and always was a fraction of sales with scammers...this is nothing new
There is also a fractions of bad sellers or sellers that do not follow policies and do whatever they want, or do not bother to learn ebay policies who come running to the boards when they do not accomplish what they tried to and want everyone to blame the buyers instead of taking responsibility.
That is all documented here as well.

And even with most of all this....itis mostly about some sellers that ignore exactly what ebay's policies are which are all posted BTW and instead want to blame because they don't like them or don't read them....yet continue to agree with them legally.

drusalina · ‎07-23-2018

We all wouldn't be here complaining IF WE HAD SALES! Hello eBay! We need sales! Not changes and glitches that stop sales! HELLO eBay are you listening to the sellers? YOU SHOULD BE! WE NEED SALES!

Change the channel!

everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures · ‎07-23-2018

@drusalina wrote:
We all wouldn't be here complaining IF WE HAD SALES! Hello eBay! We need sales! Not changes and glitches that stop sales! HELLO eBay are you listening to the sellers? YOU SHOULD BE! WE NEED SALES!

Ebay doesn't and never has guaranteed sales...read the terms of use...which you agreed to. This is not a new thing.
No one can force a buyer to purchase your items either. You have to work your own business and not expect someone else to do it. EBay is a platform you use...you decide if it is a platform that works for you or not.

retrose1 · ‎07-23-2018

@futuretomorrow wrote:
@retrose1

I get your point but there's a small contradiction in your last paragraph. If one sold stuff for emergency bills they weren't going to spend it here regardless, hence putting it back into the eBay flow wasn't going to happen. eBay still loses in that particular use case beyond their fees but other sellers don't benefit.

Everything else is spot on to the letter. It's investing 101 even if sellers don't realize it. You spend money on things and places more readily that make you money, not create hardships for you at every turn a.k.a eBay.

I agree with your point but I have observed from I'm getting scammed threads on the boards for years that a high % of regular ebay buyers that become newbie sellers do so because some emergency has come up and they needed the money that the ebay sales would generate. Which is why they start with the ultra risky high dollar items first.

They had been buyers on ebay, and once they get scammed out of their money at a time they were down on their luck - and from a place they considered a safe haven for them, after all they could always fall back on buyer protection, they will err in the belief that it should be the same if they are sellers, they will not come back to ebay any time soon as either a buyer or a seller.

So while the emergency money might not be spent on ebay, sellers on ebay in the future will lose as the buyer/newbie seller will no longer sell and they will no longer buy after they lost all faith in ebay.

(*Bleep*)

everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures · ‎07-23-2018

@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures wrote:
@drusalina wrote:
We all wouldn't be here complaining IF WE HAD SALES! Hello eBay! We need sales! Not changes and glitches that stop sales! HELLO eBay are you listening to the sellers? YOU SHOULD BE! WE NEED SALES!
Ebay doesn't and never has guaranteed sales...read the terms of use...which you agreed to. This is not a new thing.
No one can force a buyer to purchase your items either. You have to work your own business and not expect someone else to do it. EBay is a platform you use...you decide if it is a platform that works for you or not.

This FACT will never change no matter whether you want to acknowledge it or not...it is the reality.
No site guarantees sales and no site ever will.