2025 eBay Revenue by Geography

[suelel1968]

I think eBay UK will take this as a win. How much of the increase comes from core business is unknown. 

[theelench]

Yes, I think they will take it as a win as they can point to the increase in '25 compared to the '24 figure.

But the '25 figure is still 44 (millions?) short of the '23 figure and whereas the other major economies, the US, China and Germany, all show straight Y on Y increases for both years, the UK along with the Rest of world (Row) show a dip in '24.

I think ebay will be debating two questions:

1.  Will the UK show another increase next year ?  Meaning that Free to Sell attracted more sellers and sales , adding more revenue than those that stopped using ebay, causing the '24 drop.

2.  Will the new blood continue to use ebay in the longer term, as many of those who left did.  Or will they try selling short-term, discover that it isn't as easy as ebay's marketing makes out and leave as quickly as they arrived.

IMHO I don't think ebay will see this years numbers as bad enough to reverse last years changes.  Perhaps they will delay the roll-out to other areas for another year to see whether the UK's figures continue to recover or not.

If so the UK is stuck with SD and the BPF for at least another year.

[suelel1968]

@theelench and of course revenue isn't profit. Unfortunately those figures are a long way off. Sept/Oct I think.

What happened in 2024?

[theelench]

Possibly Vinted ?

[banditfrenzy]

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@theelench wrote:

If so the UK is stuck with SD and the BPF for at least another year.

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I get the feeling that these changes are to extract more £value from an existing core user base & not to attract new users.

Extracting more £££'s from an existing user base is a popular business tactic & much, much cheaper than attracting new business. Ebay has many more ways to do this to explore . . . 

[theelench]

I'm sure it has as we've seen them doing so for some years.  I didn't read all of this quarter's report but in a couple of previous quarters CEO's statements that I have read they mentioned by how much ebay has increased it's percentage 'take' per transaction.

But is it a sound longer-term strategy?  I read the Business Seller Board and there are regular threads and complaints about how high their fees are, often along side comparisons with private sellers who pay no fees (Although they never asked for Free to Sell and weren't consulted about it)

I've also related that the last three house-hold gadgets I had to replace I bought in Tesco as they were cheaper than the same items for sale on ebay. 

If that's more generally true isn't ebay already pushing the limit of adding to business sellers costs which, when passed on to buyers, make them uncompetitive with the High Street ?  Businesses on ebay took-off because they were cheaper than B&M shops with their high overheads ?  It looks to me like the overheads of selling on ebay are fast catching-up.  So how long is that piece of string and will ebay find it's suddenly run out?

[suelel1968]

@theelench I've been increasing my revenue to be fair. That's inflation! So at best we can say that eBay has increased net revenue more than inflation. Good job! 

Decreased satisfaction is a given. Decreased profits......... can't see a huge increase on the horizon.

Do you watch Dragons Den? I like it when they say " I'm not going to invest because i think it's a nice little business just for you." I wish eBay was just a nice little business just for us, but those pesky investors get in the way.

[roberpalme_236]

I reckon ebay would be disappointed with the income increase of 3.78%, from $1.508Bn to $1.565Bn.

Ebay made several changes in the UK to try and increase their income:

- BPF on private buyers

- SD kick back from private sellers

- Promotion fees criteria tweaked on both business and private sellers

Have these changes worked that well if income, including inflationary increases, has only risen by 3.78%?

[the_book_seekers]

ebay's changes haven't had the full year to take effect - BPF arrived in February, SD arrived in May and promotional listings were changed in June so they have a bit to add to full year figures. On top of this ebay is increasing the fixed element of sales over £10 to 40p and changed FVFs in certain categories so far this year.

If figures don't match up to expectations we will probably see more of the above.

[suelel1968]

@the_book_seekersyes you are right. And 2024 was low due to removal of fees on clothing and in October fees for private sellers on everything. 

So when all is said and done they have spent a lot and annoyed and frustrated many just to get back to 2023 revenues. 

[theelench]

So shouldn't whatever the annual inflation rate is be deducted from the 3.78% increase?

I'm pretty sure I've seen that done on previous years figures, which has reduced the real increase to virtually nothing.

Another thing that has to be factored in (or taken out) of the calculation to get the true increase in ebays revenue is the automatic increase ebay gets every time RM and the other delivery companies raise their prices.

I don't know either of the figures off-hand but even taking off just 1% for each, doesn't leave much of an increase that has been created by ebay.

[akemp1]

That annual UK revenue increase, which roughly covers inflation, includes the SD where ebay wouldn't have previously seen the postage revenue when people bought stamps and labels from the post office. It also includes an increasing percentage of buyers wasting money on promotion fees.

So the 'core' revenue from basic UK buyer/seller fees will likely be declining especially in real terms.

SD was the tipping point for me to signup to V and I have done around 80 transactions there now and it's becoming increasingly obvious that that place is winning on the volume and variety of interesting items listed in some categories now. So I often tend to go to V before ebay now when buying.

[roberpalme_236]

Agree that the changes haven't had a full year to take effect and that if they had the increase may have been higher.

But even with BPF being in place for 10 months, SD for 7 months, promoted listing changes for 6 months and a full years inflation effect I believe ebay would have been expecting an increase larger than 3.78% for the 2025 year.

[akemp1]

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@roberpalme_236 wrote:

But even with BPF being in place for 10 months, SD for 7 months, promoted listing changes for 6 months and a full years inflation effect I believe ebay would have been expecting an increase larger than 3.78% for the 2025 year.

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If ebay were expecting a bigger increase they are living on another planet they are lucky to still be in business in the UK given how the cool kids are embracing V now. Struggling to holding the numbers relative to inflation by burning user goodwill to the point that some of us start using other places isn't a great long term strategy.

[roberpalme_236]

Totally agree, none of my kids purchase anything off of ebay.

Agree re burning goodwill and driving people away, they're left with trying to extract as much fee income as possible from those who still use the site as either sellers or purchasers.

[akemp1]

A couple of years ago before I joined the V place I noticed the younger people at work were looking at me with sympathy when I said I used ebay like I was out of touch which I guess I was. SD showed me the way. I now play the field buying and selling on whichever platform makes the most sense for each item.

[claire_leonhart]

True, I don't like it as seller, I prefer platform where I can choose and buyer can choose how the item can be posted, regard sizes and book collection for them, so I can have it out in 12h, but for buying I browse there as well, there is a lot of quick traffic, items get sold and added very fast, posting with royal mail is cheaper, or maybe is the buyer protection, but there is a lot of variety items now.

[claire_leonhart]

Me, too, I decided to keep stuff everywhere like a window, I don't have to sell, and buyer buys from where he likes, since almost every platform removed choices.