eBay Q4 2024 Pre-Earnings Commentary & Highlights
eBay is set to report Q4 2024 earnings February 26 at 5:00 PM Eastern. Take a look back at highlights from Q4 and what's happening so far in Q1 2025!
Leadership Changes & Corporate News
eBay announced and closed their first acquisition of 2025, buying auto auction site Caramel to streamline and simplify the vehicle buying experience.
Liz Morton
Global Insights Manager, Lamont Jones, announced his departure from in October, saying his role had been eliminated due to "shifting priorities" at the company, while Jateen Patel was named Chief Analytics Officer in November.
Nordstrom and Mattel alum Alexis Hoopes joined eBay as VP Global Head of Fashion and Global VP GM Business Selling Murray Lambell left in October after almost 17 years at the company.
Multiple business development leaders have left eBay in recent months to take on roles at overseas rivals Tik Tok and Temu, while Walmart continues recruiting talent from eBay to bolster its initiatives to compete in crucial high value categories - a strategy largely credited for Walmart's impressive Q4 marketplace growth.
Liz Morton
eBay's labor relations troubles continue as TCGUnion-CWA workers rally for better wages and a fair contract, employee rights firm Don Bivens investigates potential 401(K) benefit violations, allegations of discrimination and retaliation surface amidst H-1B debate, and sneaker authenticators file class action alleging Fair Labor Standards Act and New York Labor Law violations.
Liz Morton
Meanwhile, eBay has completed their "Living Our Values" assessment, finding the company operates in line with their Human Rights Policy and other values statements - but that wasn't enough to assuage some investors' concerns.
Judge Patti Saris has cleared the way for plaintiffs Ina and David Steiner to pursue punitive damages for some claims while eBay and ex-execs hope to get other claims tossed as ~$500 Million cyberstalking lawsuit continues on path to 2025 trial.
Liz Morton
Sullivan & Cromwell have won a Law360 award for eBay Section 230 win dismissing EPA suit seeking to hold the company liable for illegal chemicals & emissions control cheat devices sold on the platform - but the matter is far from settled as the DOJ has filed an appeal and is seeking to overturn the dismissal.
Liz Morton
In related news, TCGPlayer appears to have stopped selling trading cards on eBay in direct competition with third party sellers a week before the EPA case was dismissed, possibly signaling concern the practice could jeopardize their Section 230 defense.
On that note, eBay is looking for a new Crisis and Financial Communications Manager, revealing the company may be preparing for a rough 2025 as legal, regulatory, and financial scrutiny heats up.
Liz Morton
eBay has partnered with Alipay to offer buyers in China more ways to shop and pay on the site, as popularity wanes in Australia in favor of Temu, cross border trade feels pressure from looming tariff changes, and analysts raise concerns about China headwinds and slowing ad rev growth.
Liz Morton
And eBay's stock soared to a new 52 week high on the announcement of a new partnership with Meta allowing listings to be shown on Facebook Marketplace - but sellers have yet to see any evidence their listings are being shown and any GMV bump eBay may have gained is sure to be short lived as Meta moves quickly to open program up to other marketplaces.
Liz Morton
Promoted Listings Ads & Growth Hacking Discounts
eBay made multiple stealth changes to Promoted Listings ad rate requirements leading up to Black Friday holiday rush in desperate bid to boost revenue.
First, sellers noticed in early November that the Promoted Listings Dynamic ad rate minimum had been raised from 2% to 5% with no notice to sellers.
Liz Morton
Then, eBay also instituted a massive 10X minimum bid increase on Promoted Listings Priority cost per click ads, going from $0.02 to $0.20 per click - followed by a Marketing Terms update expanding attributable actions for ad fees and giving eBay more wiggle room to make rate changes in the future with no notice to sellers.
Liz Morton
eBay is also making major changes to Promoted Listings ad attribution in Germany, exponentially expanding the number of sales which will collect ad fees - and sellers worry it could come to the US in the near future.
Those Q4 changes may have spooked sellers and slowed ad adoption rates, forcing eBay to crank up ad discounts in Q1 while new listing form insights show 60-70%+ ad usage saturation has already been reached in some categories.
Liz Morton
But the discounts don't stop there - in both Q4 and Q1, eBay has increasingly turned to legacy discounting tricks in an effort to goose GMV and Active and Enthusiast Buyer stats.
Liz Morton
UK C2C Transformation: Buyer Fees, Private Seller Payment Changes, and Simple Delivery Managed Shipping
eBay was set to introduce Buyer Fees in the UK on February 4th as part of their plan to remonetize purchases after dropping private seller fees in October, but a last minute change to a phased roll out wasn't enough to prevent an embarrassing failure to launch from creating chaos on the platform.
Liz Morton
Once the buyer fees did start to roll out, confusion continued as the math on didn't quite add up and fee-averse buyers immediately began sharing clever workarounds to try to avoid paying higher fee-inclusive prices.
Private seller pushback against payment policy changes has also been fierce, as eBay is now holding their payouts until after delivery confirmation - a move that also appears to be being deployed on a much more limited basis in the US.
eBay has not yet provided an exact date that Simple Delivery managed shipping will become mandatory for UK private sellers, but updates to increase rates and address accessibility concerns suggest it will be "coming soon" - and a recent seller survey hints that a similar managed shipping option could be planned for the US in the not too distant future.
Liz Morton
Meanwhile, eBay continues to further differentiate policies and features for business vs private sellers in the UK and the Q4 free-free used clothing sales promotion for business sellers was not extended after the end of the year.
AI Updates, Focus Categories & Other Initiatives
AI-powered "Magical Bulk Listing" tool has expanded to include more categories, but the tool still has limitations and is far from the "take a picture and let AI do the rest" experience CEO Jamie Iannone has been promising for over a year.
eBay is leveraging OpenAI's new agent Operator offering to act as a virtual assistant capable of autonomously performing tasks across the internet, including online shopping, and directs users to eBay for unique inventory finds - but is it really an innovative tech breakthrough or just more AI hype?
Liz Morton
Longtime eBay mega-seller Rick Probstein is launching BYD, a live selling platform aimed directly at competing with eBay Live, Whatnot, Fanatics Collect and more as livestream competition heats up.
Liz Morton
The Top Star sneaker buyer loyalty program is quietly ending amidst broader strategy shift.
eBay Germany has put out the call to private sellers, inviting them to sign up for a new pilot program with promises of increased exposure through curated product feeds and social sharing opportunities.
And eBay's January 2025 Seller Update revealed Final Value Fees would be increasing across most categories on the platform, effective February 14th.
Technical Issues
Potentially millions of UK users were left scrambling after automatic updates left iOS and Android apps non-functional and unable to be updated on older devices.
Liz Morton
And ongoing technical issues impacting Buy It Now, Add To Cart Offers and Watch Lists which have lingered for months bring to mind Elliott Management's past critiques of eBay leadership failures and technical misexection that sadly still ring true today.
Liz Morton
That's it for the eBay Q4 2024 pre-earnings highlights - catch up on commentary from Q3 earnings and stay tuned for more coverage after the call from Value Added Resource!
