What's going on with eBay's core business?

[bargainbloodhound]

From ChannelAdvisor Scott Wingo's blog:

eBay Strategies friend, UBS's Ben Schachter, lowered his eBay price point from $35 to $28 today which put some pressure on the stock.  He cited concerns over:

1. The core business
2. Paypal off ebay showing more traction
3. Skype

On the core business he said: "In order for eBay’s stock to work, we think investors will need to see reacceleration or at least stabilization in the core business..."

This got me thinking, there's all this talk on core is slow/broken/etc. (even from the eBay camp), but what's really going on here?

I dug into the plethora of Q2 analyst reports and wanted to highlight some of their data/findings in this post.  Then over the rest of the week, I thought it would be fun for us to brainstorm on creative ways eBay could "fix core".

What I found in the eBay macro-economics is:

  1. Buyers are deactiving at a growing clip
  2. Conversions are decreasing (most sellers would tell you ASPs are decreasing in their category too)
  3. GMV/listing is decreasing
  4. revenue/listing is decreasing

and:

Safa chimes in with an interesting point: "Unfortunately for eBay and its sellers, market disrupting price changes and rebalancing of listing formats may have little effect on monetization in the end. The key component of monetization that has fallen are conversion rates."

full article: http://ebaystrategies.blogs.com/ebay_str...g_on_.html

[waterdancer]

Christa Sober Quarles- Thomas Weisel Partners

Hi, just following up on some of the store issues. First, on the pricing changes, as you look at comparable options for sellers -- to some degree, the stores is more of like a cost per action program. Do you look at other programs and say, is this comparable? Then, does this also limit your uptake of Express to some degree in making that a viable site?

The second question around it is really related to the syndication of SIF listings. Have you looked at potentially putting those on sites other than Express and potentially acting as a viable marketing services provisioner for your sellers off of the eBay platform? Thanks.

Meg Whitman

So in terms of comparable options, I think your question, Christa, is, is this still a real value for eBay sellers? The answer to that is yes. We continue to evaluate, is this a vibrant selling proposition for users? What we know is that the take rate on eBay -- either in SIF and core, or a blended average -- is lower than anyplace else on the web. But the key is the inventory turns and the cash flow.

On eBay, often the selling price is a little lower, which our sellers have concerns about, but of course that's the value proposition for buyers. So it's high turns, high cash flow for sellers. We think actually from a comparable point of view, we are still very much in the lead.

With regard to eBay Express, I actually think what we are doing on SIF will improve eBay Express, because what we need to have going on in eBay Express is items of a real value. To have lots of commodity-oriented fixed-price items in Express will be interesting. What will be a lot more interesting is if we have really high-quality SIF listings and very high-quality fixed-price core items.

:yeahright2:

Lynda

[amy]

is this still a real value for eBay sellers? The answer to that is yes. We continue to evaluate, is this a vibrant selling proposition for users? What we know is that the take rate on eBay -- either in SIF and core, or a blended average -- is lower than anyplace else on the web. But the key is the inventory turns and the cash flow.

On eBay, often the selling price is a little lower, which our sellers have concerns about, but of course that's the value proposition for buyers. So it's high turns, high cash flow for sellers. We think actually from a comparable point of view, we are still very much in the lead.

To have lots of commodity-oriented fixed-price items in Express will be interesting.

Meg cheering on the business model of the large volume sellers who operate on margins of pennies and flood the market.  Whoo hoo! I wonder if she's stopped to think that the conversion rate ('take rate' in Meg-anese) is lower on eBay precisely because of the sellers who are using the Volume business model she's suggesting and are flooding the market with commodity items?

She also fails to mention that the only reason that business model still works on eBay and that the largest  volume sellers are still in businesss is because eBay cut fees on the under $1.00 tier the past 2 years--which still wasn't enough to save many who employed the "lower selling prices, high turns, high cash flow" business model like GlacierBayDVD, Sell2All and several others.

[cranky_hippie]

Meg is an ass. 

[BellisimaJ.]

[quote author=cranky_hippie link=topic=4608.msg19500#msg19500 date=1154604191]
Meg is an ass. 
[/quote]

She is Marie Antoinette. Let's hope her fall from grace at ebay is appropriate.

[stardust]

^^ Actually, the image of Humpty Dumpty comes more to mind...

[bargainbloodhound]

What I found in the eBay macro-economics is:

  1. Buyers are deactiving at a growing clip
  2. Conversions are decreasing (most sellers would tell you ASPs are decreasing in their category too)
  3. GMV/listing is decreasing
  4. revenue/listing is decreasing

#1 could be partially solved if eBay made their site easier to use, fixed the constant glitches (especially the page not found errors), and made more of an effort to fight fraud
#2 is one of the reasons I'm not listing on eBay.  Conversions and ASPs in "core" auction format have been sliding for several years on eBay.

[xppman]

Ummm What's ebay? 

[cranky_hippie]

[quote author=xppman link=topic=4608.msg19605#msg19605 date=1154656049]
Ummm What's ebay? 
[/quote]

eHell.

[BellisimaJ.]

[quote author=cranky_hippie link=topic=4608.msg19607#msg19607 date=1154656150]
[quote author=xppman link=topic=4608.msg19605#msg19605 date=1154656049]
Ummm What's ebay? 
[/quote]

eHell.
[/quote]

:o