eBay Invites Competitor Meta To eBay Open Seller Conference To Pitch Instagram Social Sharing
eBay has made a quiet addition to the agenda for their annual eBay Open seller conference, inviting presenters from competitor Meta to pitch sellers on using Instagram to grow their businesses.
Liz Morton
The segment titled "The power of Instagram for your small business" promises to help eBay sellers create engaging content and build their brands on Instagram.
Industry Manager, Aidan Roberts, and Client Partner, Lillian Rice from Meta will be on hand to lead this session.
eBay has struggled to gain widespread seller adoption of their Social sharing tool that connects to Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube as technical issues and posting delays often make the feature difficult to use.
Liz Morton
There is also little incentive for sellers to use this tool since eBay reneged on previous promise in 2021 to reduce final value fees on sales made through social media sharing - an idea that Etsy was only too happy to steal once eBay abandoned it.
Liz Morton
But beyond the huge missed opportunity and misexecution, eBay's social sharing initiatives have also raised questions about business strategy and whether CEO Jamie Iannone realizes the risks inherent in continuing to send seller customers to Facebook and Instagram for customer support and special events when Meta is increasingly using both sites to enable ecommerce marketplaces that compete directly with eBay.
Liz Morton
As @unsuckEBAY so presciently explained in 2021, continuing to funnel sellers to Facebook seemed like a bad move, especially in light of how StockX took a big bite out of eBay's sneaker business in 2019.
That assessment has only become more true in recent years as Meta has increased efforts to build ecommerce tools and offerings directly into their products through Facebook Marketplace and Instagram Shopping, with direct in app checkout negating any need to direct buyers to a website or eBay store to complete purchases.
For a brief moment last year, it seemed that eBay may finally be understanding their position vis-à-vis Meta as they sought to quash subpoena demands for confidential business information in FTC suit against Meta, acknowledging eBay "doesn't compete with Meta on social networking but does face off over the Facebook Marketplace ecommerce service."
Liz Morton
But that lightbulb moment appears to have been short lived as eBay has continued to double down on integrating social sharing tools into Meta-owned properties, directing users to access customer support via the eBay Facebook page, and hosting Ask Us Anything and other seller engagement events on the eBay For Sellers Instagram page.
Meanwhile, longtime dedicated members of eBay's own community forum are still waiting for answers to the Ask About eBay Ads discussion topic from over a month ago - with no additional answers in sight.
Liz Morton
It is disappointing that eBay continues to ignore and neglect their own highly engaged community forum in favor of directing users to engage on Facebook and Instagram instead.
You would think the CEO of an ecommerce company that has had less active buyers than in 2018 for 9 consecutive quarters and is clearly struggling to retain their seller base too would understand the last thing in the world you should want is for your customers to spend even one minute on a competitor's site.
It's fair to say eBay will likely never invite Amazon to present at eBay Open, which makes their continued insistence on pushing users to Meta even more baffling.
If Iannone cannot grasp something as simple as this, maybe investors should start pressuring the board to find someone who does.
