Higher sell-through rates expected for eBay

Everyone can keep up to date with sell-through rates on eBay with Medved charts. I won't even comment on the sell-through, you can check it for yourself.
http://www.medved.net/cgi-bin/cal.exe?SIND

Ebay has experienced 5 consecutive quarters of meeting or exceeding earnings forecast so claims of declining listings or traffic is meaningless.

3 years of fear mongering doesn't work. Just ask George W. Bush and the American public.

That's just an asinine statement. Any professional eBay seller knows that eBay Inc. meets their revenue goals and continues to grow only because of listing sales and promotions that bring in large amounts of money near the end of each quarter. The "listing specials" grow in number each quarter-end when eBay is running short.

Can it go on forever? Possibly. But eBay will never be a great stock to own while eBay keeps buying crap like Skype and treating sellers like crap.

If you check the sell-through for the past week or so, you will notice a significant drop. This drop, as well as every other large drop, is a direct result of the listing specials. It's a trade off. ebay sellers get inexpensive listings, but have less sales. eBay gets a boost in revenue to help meet expectations, but shows poor sell-through numbers for a week or so.

What you seem to don't understand is that your continous rant and people of similar ilk is very well known in the investment community for the last 3 years.

Unfortunately for bashers like yourself, when investors weigh the problems pointed out vs everything else regarding Ebay, its a concern but not big enough to scare us away from investing in a very undervalued stock.

I'm not sure if you realize this but to seasoned smart investors you look like a raving stalking lunatic. LOL ...I guess on the positive side you are a hero for all those who have been betrayed by ebay.

So can someone please tell me what's wrong with this? You every hear of retail promotions at department stores. You make it sound like treason. LOL

Listing count only tell part of the story. I rather have lower listings count and higher average retail selling price with faster conversion. Also Smart Sellers have a better understanding supply and demand and thus control their listings more productively.

Sometimes less is more especially for buyers. Make sense?

I think everyone has forgotten that the store-to-core strategy was suppose to GROW the auction core. That's what all this was about last year but many forget about that. According to Medved's Ebay listings, the strategy appears to be failing. The listing sales have hidden the fact that the auction listings are not growing on their own. Last year's risky strategy was to force the growth of the core and so far it's not happening when you throw out the listing sales. Core would be in bad shape if there were no listing sales. So the strategy itself is failing. Make sense?

SW

Get your facts straight. You've been busted.

There was an imbalance in the eBay marketplace that was beginning to have a negative impact on buyer experience. This was a challenge quickly addressed by increasing fees for store inventory listings.

Straight off Q4 Earnings call transcript. Core listing growth was up 10% YOY.

Medved/dealscart is objectively and independantly audited, accredited and owned by whom?

Take a closer look at some of our key operating metrics, we added nearly 10 million new users in the quarter, bringing the total registered user base to almost 222 million users. eBay new listings in the quarter were 610 million, representing year-over-year growth of 12%. Core listings were up 10% and store inventory listings grew by 27% to 84 million new listings in the quarter. Store listings growth continues to slow, a result of our efforts to rebalance the marketplace in the third quarter. The deceleration in growth has improved the mix between core and store listings, while store listing conversion rates have increased as well.

My facts are straight. The raising of store fees was to force store items to the auction core. It’s been over half a year and the core is not growing when you take out the listing sales. The listing sales are covering up this fact which they are not getting the desired results from the store-to-core strategy. Don’t be so naïve and take Ebay’s word for everything. The negative buying experience could have been a variety issues including security or lack thereof, search issues, the flooding of cheap products imported from China, etc. I believe Ebay whiffed big-time on this one and it lead to much user discontent. That’s par for the course for this management team though.

point me to credibile independant audited objective facts. I'm suppose believe you who hides behind the internet over a CEO who is held accountable to Sarbannes Oxley act?

Please spare me the fuddle dud. Gary is that you or your wife hiding behind he alias?

Please don't say medved/dealscart.

Why not Medved? I’ve been told by some good investors they are fairly reliable. Medved's Ebay auction listings show many disturbing trends. Do you not realize the pressure for the stock to perform every quarter? I believe their heyday was over last year when management admitted traffic was declining. I blame management partly for the decline for a variety of reasons. Do you think this management team is not capable of buckling under the pressure for this stock to perform? Don’t be so naïve to think it can’t happen. It’s happened before.

PS, I'm not who you think I am. I haven't been here for a long time until today.

if believing 5 straight quarters of meeting or exceeding earnings forecast then call me naive.

Comparing Enron and Ebay is just stupidity at it's worst.

Say all you want about so called investors who trust and rely on medved. Stop beating around the bush.

You still have proven or pointed to me to credibile independant audited objective facts! Who owns medved and prove to me without a shadow of the doubt the listing counts are accurate, reliable and objective.

So let me understand Stagewon argues that listings are going down. Then someone counters that revenues are up 5 quarters and stage won says "well its because of listing promos." Is stagewon saying listing promos alone are the primary reason why they meet or exceed their forecast? Not only that but what the hell is wrong with a listing promo? Umm let me think for a second... to incent listings and revenue? Bad bad ebay.

And then someone argues that in a formal Q4 earnings call the CFO states listings were up 10% YOY.while all wall street is watching and listening. Knowing full well he is held accountable to the Sarbannes Oxley act. Stagewon musters up "are you naive you believe everything what they say?" So you might as well question every single public company in the world!

Unbelievable. You have the audacity to present yourself as a credible critic? Do your homework sir because you made yourself look like a complete ass with his tail between his leg.

I would trust Medved's numbers much more than what Ebay is putting out there. Ebay's credibility is shot with many good users. Ebay management can't even keep its own site and users secure. I know users than have been affected by their neglegence to fix these issues. The government issued a warning about some of their security issues a year ago. They are supposedly just getting around to fixing them now. I could go on with the search issues, glitches, etc. that this company is not upfront about. So don't give me that credibility crap. Ebay has none.

Wow, you slam this stock every chance you get. Sometimes very subtle, just an innuendo, sometimes outright hatred.

"Are you a disgruntled former employee of Ebay ahem ex seller?

"Are you trying to save us from ourselves?

"I realize that you appear to know more about ebay than probably any human currently alive, but my God, man, this company can make some people some money.

"What's wrong with that?"

So let me get this straight, you think that Medved has some reason to provide bad statistics? Yet you believe everything that comes out of eBay's mouth?

That's absurd.

And yes, eBay's continued growth is due in large part to listing specials. Notice how they run them right before the end of the quarter, every quarter, like clockwork. Sell-through is always down during these sales according to Medved -- oh wait, that's right, Medved is full of --it, I forgot.

I think it's funny that some of you defend everything that eBay does and complain about those of us with differing opinions. You sound so bitter. Why is that? Because you've invested in a company that you keep hearing is going to explode with profits and soar in value, yet it never does? Because the analysts keep saying the price is undervalue, but it never gains any traction? Is it because many of those who are upset with eBay management are actually professional sellers who know more about the company that you? ...sellers who are funding eBay's growth with their fees.

Frankly I don't care what the investing community thinks of me. I (and everyone else who posts about the mess eBay has become) know what I think of you - a bunch of bandwagon riders who use the reports of analysts to make your decisions - analysts that wouldn't be able to be successful on eBay if they tried, and only regurgitate eBay's press releases.

My my, such lively discourse. To the good commenter who questions if my wife is posting to this blog under an alias, she has never logged one word on this site, thanks.

How short sighted can some people be?

Gosh, how much revenue did Stubhub add to eBay's revenue last quarter? Hmmmm?

The previous quarter's revenue spiked based on the addition of annual fees for Skype.

The two quarters prior to that were propped up by the addition of Google adwords which now fill the feature advertising spot that former eBay powersellers vacated, a spot I might add which generated more revenue when eBay users employed it than it does now with adwords.

The revenue increases that eBay pundits refer to have required an ever increasing foot print to generate. It's a mad scramble now for eBay management to grab hold of something new each quarter to fulfill revenue expectations which are not even close to being provided via the good old auction site. eBay management has driven the original cash cow into the crapper and they are placating you with artificial growth shrouded in poor acquisitions and foolhardy cost cutting measures while effectively alienating a formerly rock solid user base the whole time.

Now here's where the rubber hits the road. The idiotic attempt made by eBay to commoditize television advertising time for sale in an auction type venue just got blown to bits by the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau. That little beauty of an idea was to be Bill and Meg's salvation for the next two years going forward. The idea was scrapped in a move labeled as a "boycott" by major media and with the words (not verbatim), We don't think eBay can do this right. Check it out, it's all over the blogs.

You may invest in eBay all you like. Long term it will grow. In the short term however, it is one of the ugliest business scenarios since Castro took over Cuba.

The eBay pancake badly needs flipping and you can mark my words, It's going to get flipped real soon. Check on the investing moves of George Soros, there's a new kid in town.


Smiles everyone, smiles!

I agree that the media auction project was stupid especially when they didnt get commitment from the networks.

But what you bashers are totally ignoring is Ebay as a whole business. Also what you fail to do in All your arguments is valuation. Which you purposely ignore because you don't know how to.

For investors who picked up ebay at mid to low 20's it's a steal and have been rewarded at it's current price. Will the stock price go up and down? Of course. In the long run investors believe Ebay (Ebay, Skype and Paypal) will continue to be one of the top 3 internet retailer that dominate the landscape.

Noone denies ebay doesnt have problems and everyone is very aware of issues. Also how ebay makes it's revenue is REVENUE whether it's via promotions or Advertisement.

But to simply dismiss ebay as a poor investment is simplistic.

If you were truly balanced you would consider every aspect of ebay both positive and negative. But Gary you aren't because you have an ax to grind and your other friends who got booted out or simply can't make money like they use to.

As for Stubhub, Gary don't be ridiculous and expect it to contributing like gang busters so quickly.

Hi I've been a lurker for a long time. The one thing I noticed is every time bull counters, Gary and team cannot directly counter back with logic but seem to go off in a different tangent and focus on some other negative experience.

It's a classic case where biased people stick to their comfort zone.

Both bashers and bulls will have their skewed opinions but ultimately earnings/revenue and the stock price will be the judge.