We are 3rd party sellers on the eBay platform for a number of our client’s brands but I personally haven’t been a shareholder of eBay in quite some time. With that said, I believe eBay is making some crafty moves to solidify their niche and potentially see stronger margins. In the latest quarter, the growth was anemic with GMV essentially down to flat year over year as you can see below.

However, the eBay advertising revenue should accelerate as eBay has launched greater functionality for bidding. As long as the active user count doesn’t drop dramatically, there should be an acceleration in the adoption of advertising which flows right to the bottom line.

Additionally, eBay continues to exploit their drive to be the choice for authentic merchandise with further partnerships and acquisitions in collectibles space. These programs clearly differentiate eBay from larger competitors like Amazon.

Could this be a turnaround? Quite a bit of work to do but can’t say I have seen eBay positioned this well in quite some time.