eBay

tobyshitzu · ‎07-18-2018

EBay Inc. (EBAY.O 0.37%) gave a lackluster sales forecast for the third quarter, signaling leaner times may be ahead for the company following a round of layoffs.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/ebay-s-bleak-q2-sales-outlook-signals-lean-times-ahead-1.1110403#_gus&_g...

More coupons ahead...

silverpinups · ‎07-18-2018

It's unfortunate that the specialty sellers that made eBay a unique place to shop are slowly being phased out (or have left) and replaced with mainstream garbage that can be purchased anywhere.

Restraining eBay polices, an ecommerce site riddled with glitches, bad decision making and lack of focus with the continuation of Corporate gouging and greed is going to leave eBay nothing more then a vacuous shell of a once unique on-line shopping experience.

dutchman48 · ‎07-18-2018

@tobyshitzu wrote:
EBay Inc. (EBAY.O 0.37%) gave a lackluster sales forecast for the third quarter, signaling leaner times may be ahead for the company following a round of layoffs.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/ebay-s-bleak-q2-sales-outlook-signals-lean-times-ahead-1.1110403#_gus&_g...

More coupons ahead...

It is no surprise to me and I am sure not to any one else that deals with Ebay.

esclyons · ‎07-18-2018

ebay just started announcing no fees, so what..???

esclyons · ‎07-18-2018

for buyers..

2756anderson · ‎07-18-2018

Of course, not word ONE about sellers, their opinions in the puff piece.

hlmacdon · ‎07-18-2018

Touting a no member ship fee is not going to sway people over Amazon who just posted a record sale event.

Earnings call highlights:

New users (which have an anemic growth rate) "like" the product based shopping experience, odd how they probably don't have a basis for comparison while existing users don't like it (surprise!).
Key hope for growth is through that "experience" and other "innovative new buyer experiences (how about fixing the **bleep** that doesn't work for existing buyers), a new C2C selling flow, and guaranteed delivery (that pesky amazon thing again).
User discrimination continues through the concierge program where you essentially are paying for a higher level of service via your buying/selling activity.
Reducing reliance on outsourced service (an improvement) and implement AI (lol) and hiring more in house service (mixed experiences here but mostly good).
Brand marketing campaign has failed to improve buyer consideration (ie it isn't converting people despite the GO BIG WITH EBAY! campaign)
Sellers who will be enrolled into the new payments withholding experience have already been chosen and will be automagically be enrolled in the fall
Fidget spinners are key to ebay growth. Every quarter needs a new fidget spinner or pet rock. Fidget spinners are to blame for slower user growth. Did I mention we need fidget spinners every quarter?
Price price price. Q2 promo increase will be ongoing as ebay seeks to fudge a competitive position (already has one considering how many people successfully run amazon prime drop shipping businesses despite the great culling of late).
Ebay execs seem to get flustered when asked about the impact of google on their business.

Here was a great question that really encapsulated one of the core problems I see:

Hi. Thanks very much for taking my questions. I guess, first, you talked about a difference in behavior between new customers and existing customers, and that the existing base was less favorable. I guess, how do we think about your initiatives going forward to target that base?

No good answer to that one.

2756anderson · ‎07-18-2018

I go to the post office, 1/3 of the packages I see are often Amazon. Charging someone $100 is no deterrent to those spending thousands and saving hundreds in the process and who have access to a wide-breadth of product. Costco has been charging membership fees for decades.

fashionoutletdeal · ‎07-19-2018

Thats why we pay higher fees for ebay stores .What we get back ?

There is a lot to learn and training .Higher fees does not mean better service . the river knows how to treat customer and sellers .Try to get something from ebay CS they ripped you off you are not lucky to get someone from USA.My sales here drop a lot ,but I gain on the river .Too tired to fight with incompetent CS that doesnt know how work the place that hire them .Ah and not last pushing Chinese sellers on top of the search engine doesnt bring good customer experience .

There is a lot more but i dont want to go further .Sometimes i feel sorry for this place that i had so much fun and the great sellers that i met online .

brettjet38 · ‎07-19-2018

eBay only have eBay to blame, they screwed their customers - THE SELLERS

What is that old saying "you reap what you sow", well get ready for a barren harvest!

bozonet · ‎07-20-2018

Keep making searches more annoying and make it more difficult to find what you are looking for. That should help. And every time something changes with searching or displaying the results make sure to include new glitches that clearly show no thought or proper testing was involved in the change.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎07-20-2018

In the process of doing some random item searches on dot ca it now shows Canadian sellers as either just a top rated seller or is blank. When you open the listing it confirms that the seller actually is Canadian. Should not be a 2 step process. If you do the same search on dot com the information displays differently. Just seems that information is displaying inconsistently entirely depending on how you do something. This is making it very confusing for a good percentage of buyers AND sellers and not improving the experience in a good way.

- Frustrated in Calgary

pjcdn2005 · ‎07-20-2018

It is consistent in that search view shows you if a seller is NOT located in that country. So on .ca you don’t see the location if seller is in Canada and on .com you don’t see the location posted if it is for a US seller. I’m not certain if it has always been like that but it has been for quite a while.

widgetc · ‎07-21-2018

eBay wants to be like the river. It won't work. That niche is taken.

What eBay did well was the collectible, vintage and old stock hard to find items. Those are almost the only things I purchase here. Also I don't want "free" shipping. I often purchase multiple small items and I don't want shipping costs built into each of them. I want to get a combined shipping invoice after purchase.

For me eBay is moving completely in the wrong direction

hlmacdon · ‎07-21-2018

Here is another fantastic quote from an article I was reading today that nails a key problem:

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.

bpl521_sell · ‎07-21-2018

@widgetc wrote:
eBay wants to be like the river. It won't work. That niche is taken.
What eBay did well was the collectible, vintage and old stock hard to find items. Those are almost the only things I purchase here. Also I don't want "free" shipping. I often purchase multiple small items and I don't want shipping costs built into each of them. I want to get a combined shipping invoice after purchase.
For me eBay is moving completely in the wrong direction

My sentiments exactly, Ebay used to be the place for hobbyists, sellers cleaning out garages, a huge marketplace for used items.

Often thought they should split their site into two. One a marketplace where it appears to want to be for the huge global sellers and another site that is more Craigslist like where small time sellers aren't bogged down by the complexity of selling, ridiculous rules.

retroman_studios · ‎07-21-2018

That is the risk when you don't own your inventory. All is takes is a few key sellers to walk out like the whales and handlers in Oceans 13.

hlmacdon · ‎07-21-2018

@retroman_studios wrote:
That is the risk when you don't own your inventory. All is takes is a few key sellers to walk out like the whales and handlers in Oceans 13.

Definitely. And it only gets worse when unlike a retailer, they have none of the in depth product knowledge of any categories beyond fidget spinners, hence their recent request to ask for seller volunteers to act as product experts. As someone from retail, it is embarrassing to see but that is what happens when you try to position yourself as retailer vs marketplace. Any real product expertise lies with the seller base and yet they have spent the last few years alienating that group to a point where it is hard to see it as anything other than hostile.

reallynicestamps · ‎07-21-2018

Yet, I believe the shares have further to fall.

But the price of shares has nothing to do with eBay's success as a business.

The shareholders never (in most cases) put any money into eBay. The buyers who bought in the initial share offerings gave eBay working capital, and since then the company has been more or less self sufficient.

If I saw something that said eBay was paying huge interest charges on borrowed money just to keep going, yes, they would be in trouble. Or if they were being turned down for loans by respectable banks and financial institutions.

The company does not pay dividends. The only way to make money on the stock is to buy it when it is low, and sell it when it is high. The volatility is built in. And whether you are buying or selling, eBay doesn't see a penny of that money.

When you let Wall Street run your business on the basis of the share price, you get situations like ToysRUs where the shareholders sold off so much of the company, that it could no longer perform its original mandate, selling toys.

What the company always needs is buyers, and sellers to service them.