Comments on: Earnings call : eBay’s income fell in Q4 2008

By: Whirly

Whirly — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:29:06 +0000

by contrast Amazon had some wonderful trading figures.

By: Tony

Tony — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 22:34:22 +0000

The sellers who get better visibility are getting better sales? There’s a shocker, let’s see how their sales are in 12 months. Meanwhile those below 4.8, the vast majority of whom don’t do a fat lot wrong are getting a shoddy service.

This isn’t rocket science, Ebay’s management have made too many bad decisions and it’s about time they took responsibility.

By: Mark T

Mark T — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 10:54:32 +0000

#14

Some good comparisons

By: Jimbo

Jimbo — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:08:58 +0000

Just to clarify – I do not blame eBay.

By: AL

AL — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:04:38 +0000

#17 & #19

Spot on.

JD must be the only person in the world that is glad there is a recession on, otherwise he’d have nothing to hide behind.

I’m struggling with the analysts not being able to understand that it is more than the credit crunch and that ebay should be performing in this sort of economic climate. It would be funny except for the fact that people’s pension money is probably invested in their shares.

By: Jimbo

Jimbo — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:43:12 +0000

While eBay blame the credit crunch, we blame ebay….

By: Cambridge_Blue

Cambridge_Blue — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:24:00 +0000

By: Cambridge_Blue

Cambridge_Blue — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:21:31 +0000

There is something wonderfully horrible but deeply sad about watching the the traincrash that is about to happen to eBay during this 1Q/2Q.
If it wasn’t for the fact that a lot of people and businesses are going to suffer even more during 2009 it would be funny – only it isn’t – just so sad and unecessary.
As a seller my contempt for ‘disruptive innovation’ is only matched by my desire to see the barmy ‘Bainite’ get his just deserts (the sack, no payoff and all pension rights revoked).
Dream on I here you say but in the end he will be removed because incompetance even on this scale has, in the end, to be recognised and addressed.
Trying to make eBay into AmazonLite is futile but trying telling that to an ex management consultant.
Hunker down, get ready for a nasty 2009, preserve your cash and do whatever it takes to maintain your margins on eBay.
Stuff the sales volume (within reason) it is all about making and sustaining profit for us!

By: hitch

hitch — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:50:48 +0000

Best move for Ebay shareholders would be to rename the business Paypal and sell off the Ebay part !

By: whirly

whirly — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:49:45 +0000

#14 Good article John, nice work.

By: John (ColderICE)

John (ColderICE) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:29:22 +0000

Message in a bottle to eBay and the Ebay execs, I got a quick message for anyone that will please listen?

http://3rdpoblogs.com/colderice/2009/01/21/message-in-a-bottle-dear-ebay-from-the-great-minds-of-circuit-city-leadership/

By: northumbrian

northumbrian — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 12:54:58 +0000

Selling skype might not be sensible to ebay as whole
but those that piddle in the same pot might get splashed on

By: TheKnickermafia

TheKnickermafia — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 12:32:08 +0000

I am not surprised at the loss. Although to blame to current economic climate is an easy thing to to, as opposed to the hoard of changes ebay have implemented the past year or so.

I think its bull to blame the economy especially when ebay sales totally died for us (where a loss was made from listing on there) even with bargain priced linger items. Whereas our website has boomed and we have had very profitable growth!

Ebay….just admit that all the constant changes have affected your profit…as we all know the site should be booming in the current economic climate! After all you are meant to be able to get a great bargain on ebay

By: shiftyswifty

shiftyswifty — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 12:19:53 +0000

#10#
Probably because it’s easier and more viable to sell Skype than it is to sell Ebay
As you say it’s making a very healthy profit which is attractive for potential buyers where as Ebay is in decline and would not be so easy to get rid

By: Chris Dawson

Chris Dawson — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 11:58:30 +0000

I’m still struggling to understand why eBay might sell Skype because:

1) The writedown is written off and gone, it won’t be recouped by a sale.
2) It’s fantastically profitable, it’s paying it’s way and will repay the buy cost and write down over time.
3) It’s a standalone money spinner – it’s making a VERY healthy profit.
4) eBay have plenty of cash in the bank – what would they reinvest the money from a Skype sale in. There’s no point just having even more cash in the bank!

Until someone can explain what eBay would do with the money from a Skype sale, all the time it’s a standalone and not dragging the rest of the group down (and in fact is growing way faster than many other parts of the business so is actually contributing to profits health over and above it’s share), why would eBay want to sell it?

By: Lisa

Lisa — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 11:03:54 +0000

It might not hit $10.00 today, but after Amazon’s earnings call on Jan. 29, it could well go below.

By: whirly

whirly — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:46:21 +0000

I wonder stock will hit sub $10.00 today.

By: board_surfer

board_surfer — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:26:25 +0000

The most worrying thing JD said :-

“Today, eBay is safer and easier to use than a year ago. Our pricing is more competitive, our success is more aligned with that of our sellers and the fixed price and auctions are becoming more balanced. But let me be clear, we still have a lot of work to do.”

By “we” im guessing he means sellers, who will still spend a huge amount of time dealing with things he changes.

By: shiftyswifty

shiftyswifty — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:22:58 +0000

But that was the best one when they rolled out ….NO MORE INTERNATIONAL VISIBILITY !

No more visibility because it “Clogged up the system”….YEAH RIGHT OH !!!

Then a few months later you could go back to Full Visibility…FOR AN EXTRA FEE !!!…..But what happened to “clogging up the system” ?

MUGS !!!!

By: shiftyswifty

shiftyswifty — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:17:49 +0000

Sellers think that if they offer “FREE” P+P and incorporate it in their selling price their stars will go up, I can tell you they won’t !
This star system gives you a false impression that YOU can alter your stars by offering incentives, like free P+P to pump up your stars, but in fact all you are doing is pumping up more fees for ebay.

They never got a bean commission off P+P, ang it grieved them so if you incorporate P+P they get more fees in starting price and more Final Valuation fees on the price

All of this American BULL SHIT isn’t working and sellers are leaving in their droves because of American SPIN when it comes to changes.
Must offer paypal because it’s safer….YEAH.

Must offer free P+P because it stops rip off P+P ….YEAH !!

How about treating buyers and sellers like adults and let us decide how we want our auctions to run and how I want to be paid and pay
Reducing the options to pay IS NOT the way to go ….offer what you like, a sale is a sale, don’t limit the ways one can pay
I tried for 3 months this “FREE” P+P lark and my stars went DOWN !!!

20,000+ sales in the past and at one time £700+ per month fees for ebay, close on £8500.00 a year fees, and not counting paypals fees also.
Moved to another site, sales DOWN proffits UP…..Ebay is in the gutter and it’s all self inflicted

By: Stuart

Stuart — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:08:35 +0000

It’s great to have the economic downturn to hid under but to be honest ebay shouldn’t be. If you look at the high street for example most of the companies that are still doing well and often better than before, are business selling stuff cheap like Primark, Aldi, Lidl etc etc so ebay should be booming!!

I don’t know why its not, I am guessing the changes and maybe the general reason is customers are simply turning away from it as its had its day maybe? You speak to most people about ebay and at sometime or another they have had a problem on there, either with a seller or ebay or paypal.

It will be intresting to see what happens after this new rule of only 1 buy it now listing per item, this is going to remove a big chunk of ebays revenues to!

In this climate ebay SHOULD be booming!

By: whirly

whirly — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 07:38:52 +0000

#1 “You are probably right but it might also mean that people are being forced to sell cheap stuff with no margin to keep their DSRs up just so they can sell their main product.”

Correct.

By: toby

toby — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 02:15:41 +0000

Were sales for 4.8 DSR sellers up, or did they throw some/all their former S&H charges into the price to get good dsrs? or did they shift some/all former S&H charges to item price to keep their dsrs up, thereby “increasing” their reported sales? Who knows how they calculated that anyway, “Buy” has 4.8 dsrs and went from nothing to massive sales.

By: ebuyerfb

ebuyerfb — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 01:48:35 +0000

There are some glimmers of hope; JD said that sellers with DSRs of 4.8 and above saw their sales grow 17%. As this was presumably at the expense of “disadvantaged” sellers, I’m not sure it says much about the health of the eBay marketplace overall, but it does suggest that one of eBay’s goals, to reward merchants who offer a better buying experience, has been met.

You are probably right but it might also mean that people are being forced to sell cheap stuff with no margin to keep their DSRs up just so they can sell their main product. I’ve often found sales are great when I’m not making any money.