eBay Inc. (EBAY) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

March 3, 2025

NASDAQ US Consumer Discretionary Broadline Retail conference_presentation 34 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Nathaniel Feather

analyst
#1

Okay. Great. Good morning, everyone, and thanks so much for joining us. My name is Nathan Feather. I'm Morgan Stanley's small and mid-cap Internet analyst. And I'm pleased to be joined this morning by Jamie Iannone, eBay's CEO; and Steve Priest, eBay's CFO. Thank you both so much for joining us today.

Jamie Iannone

executive
#2

Thanks for having us here.

Nathaniel Feather

analyst
#3

Before we begin, few quick housekeeping items for important disclosures. Please see the Morgan Stanley research disclosure website at www.morganstanley.com/researchdisclosures. If you have any questions, please reach out to your Morgan Stanley sales representative. And with that, let's begin.

Nathaniel Feather

analyst
#4

So Jamie, you're about to hit your 5-year anniversary in the CEO seat. Congratulations. Can you talk through how the business has evolved over your tenure and the key priorities as we head into 2025?

Stephen Priest

executive
#5

Look, we made a significant pivot when I came back to really get the business focused on non-new in season, massive TAM, huge growth potential. We also shifted it from a one-size-fits-all type of business to really focusing category by category on how do we build the leading CSAT in that category. We call those our focus categories. And that's been performing really well for us. Our focus categories grew over 5%. All of that was laid out by, what I call, the tech-led reimagination. And then last year, we rolled out a new strategy focused on reinventing the future of e-commerce for enthusiasts based on relevant experiences, scalable solutions, and magical innovations. And that's worked really well for us. We've had 3 consecutive quarters now of positive growth in the business. And importantly, with all the new capabilities with gen AI, et cetera, we've been able to invest horizontally across the business to help us not only in our focus categories, but also in our other categories, we call those our core categories. That's given us a lot of momentum in the business. It's really allowed us to transform the customer experience on eBay to be so different than what it was 5 years ago, and has allowed us to really make investments across specific geographies, across specific categories that have really helped fuel the underlying momentum of the business.

Nathaniel Feather

analyst
#6

Okay and great. And before we dig into the micro, and there's a lot I want to dig into on there. Let's start with the macro environment. From where you sit today, how has the health of the consumer evolved, I think, over 2024 through the holidays and the first quarter to date, and how should we think about the major differences by region?

Jamie Iannone

executive
#7

Do you want to take that one, Steve?

Stephen Priest

executive
#8

Yes, I'll take that one. So just to stand back, we have about $75 billion of GMV going through eBay on an annual basis. And our 3 largest markets, the U.S., the U.K., and Germany account 75% of that. I don't think it's any secret that Europe has been in a more challenged macro environment for some time. And as far as we look forward, we don't see any discernible change or we're not forecasting or anticipating any disenable change in the overall macro environment. I think about the U.K. and Germany, as I say, our second and third largest markets, they've sort of seen pretty stagnant momentum over the last couple of years. For example, the Bank of England, have recently come out and said they're expecting 75 basis points of GDP growth in '25. Germany also pretty stable at like 30 basis points of GDP growth. So we're not seeing much fuel from there. The U.S. has become -- and we've seen a bit more resilience in the U.S. consumer, but there continues to be pockets of pressure. But having said all that and as we stand back, Jamie alluded to earlier, we continue to see very good momentum in the business, whether it's focused categories going at 6% in the fourth quarter, our core category has been positive in the fourth quarter, we continue to execute, and I'm really, really pleased with the momentum that eBay's continue to drive.

Nathaniel Feather

analyst
#9

Okay. Great. And looking backwards, 2024 was a hallmark year for eBay, returning to positive GMV growth. And can you recap the primary factors that enabled that return and the sustainability of those as we go through the next few years?

Jamie Iannone

executive
#10

Yes. Look, one was the focus category growth that Steve just talked about, okay? So we've been seeing focus category outpace the rest of the business. We grew 5% if you look at the whole course of last year in our focus categories, and that includes large businesses. Our parts and accessories business, think about that as the parts and for you sell for vehicles is over $10 billion. And we've had the second year of it growing mid-single digits, which is healthy growth, especially in light of what's going on in the macro environment. We believe in total, if you look in aggregate over the course of last year, our focus category has actually slightly outgrew market growth. So that's been 1 key contributor. Second, is we've been doing a great job with our full funnel marketing, attracting buyers at the site. While it's not the core KPI we track, active buyers grew 1% last quarter, and that's helped us fuel what we do focus on was our enthusiast buyers on the platform. I'd say the other thing is that when I was here a year ago, investors asked, we love your performance on focus categories, but can you get your core categories, which are the rest of the categories to at least flat, which was the thesis that we laid out and we did that. In fact in Q4, our core categories were actually positive as well. And so we're seeing nice performance from the horizontal investments that we're making across the platform, whether that be in magical listing and improving our shipping experience, and what we're doing in payments and what we're doing in advertising that help lift kind of all boats across the marketplace. So overall, all of those are giving us really nice momentum coming into 2025, based on the strategic work that we've been executing.

Nathaniel Feather

analyst
#11

Now your 1Q GMV guidance doesn't play a slight decel from 4Q. Can you touch on what's driving that along with the puts and takes for 1Q GMV growth? And given that, what gives you conviction in sustained low single-digit growth as we head through '25?

Stephen Priest

executive
#12

There's a couple of things I would call out on a quarter-to-quarter basis. We did see a good uptick in GMV momentum in the holiday period in Q4, and we talked about that on the call last week. The second thing I would talk about is the calendar events. And so we are lapping a leap year from 2023, which is about a point of headwind as we come into -- sorry, from 2024 and it's about a point of headwind that we're lapping as we come into the first quarter of 2025, offset with some Easter timing that impacts that. So that's contemplated. The third element I would talk about is the underlying sort of macro environment and the uncertainty that's associated with it. We're all reading the news wires in terms of tariffs, in terms of de minimis potential changes, et cetera. And we've contemplated, we've done a lot of modeling, we've done a lot of stress testing, and some of that is contemplated in our first quarter guide. So that gives the color in terms of how we've looked at it. But having said that, as we think about the different investments that Jamie has just talked about, whether that's in focus categories, whether that's in geo-specific investments, particularly in light of the U.K. and the momentum that we're seeing, or the underlying health of the business through horizontal innovation, that gives us confidence in terms of the sustainable growth that we've put out there for full year 2025 and the color that we provided last week.

Nathaniel Feather

analyst
#13

Okay. And as you both touched on already, focused categories and relevant experiences have been a key pillar of growth in 2025. Where do you see opportunities for eBay to continue to differentiate the vertical experience? And how do you find the right balance of investing for vertical and horizontal initiatives?

Jamie Iannone

executive
#14

Yes. I think that's the right word is balance. We find a balance between what are we doing on specific verticals or categories. What are we doing in specific geos like the investments that we've made in Germany and U.K., and what are we doing horizontally. And what we see with focused categories is the opportunity to continue to expand them to new and new categories in the platform. The newest one is pre-loved fashion in the U.K. But at the same time, reinvesting back in the categories that we've already launched. Take trading cards, for example. Training cards is a category we launched several years ago as a focused category. But over time, we've been able to drive continued innovation at really nice ROI. In fact, we saw this quarter, Q4, double-digit growth in our trading card business, and it was our largest contributor to growth. Well, that's because we've been investing in things like a partnership with PSA to make it really easy to actually send in an ungraded card, get it graded, and then get it sold on eBay, all in one step without having to take that card back, resend it back in, relist it, et cetera. We acquired Goldin and Goldin Auctions, we acquired TCGplayer and have been driving nice growth in collectible card games. And so it's an example of a category where we're really innovating on a category level. But the investments in horizontal are paying off for us as well. So in that category now, we have a feature called magical listing. Magical listing is basically hold up your phone to a listing and we'll figure everything out for it. And this is now live to 100% of consumers in Germany, a majority of customers in our other major markets. But if you take something like trading cards, I can hold my phone to, let's call it, a Pete Rose rookie card and it will figure out everything about that card, but it also does things like pulls out the certification from PSA if it's a graded card, and pulls in all of the data about PSA. That card was graded 3 years ago. It got a PSA 9. Here's been the possession of it, et cetera. And it's an example of how both our focus categories and our horizontal work can often be synergistic to really help drive the business. I'm excited for what we're doing in fashion. If you think about fashion on eBay, fashion is an over $10 billion category on the platform. And up until a few quarters ago, you couldn't even say your size, there was very little discovery or inspiration. Now we're able to use generative AI to give you a shop to look, and say, based on your size and based on your style, which is Scandinavian minimalism or athleisure, whatever it is, we're putting together assets. We're putting together endless scrolls of feeds of what that is. And we've been doing over $10 billion because we have amazing inventory. Now that we can use these new tools through focused categories to show it off, I'm really excited by the potential of what that can be.

Nathaniel Feather

analyst
#15

Okay. And you brought up a couple of new gen AI features there. And certainly, you've been one of the most active companies within e-commerce and testing and launching both gen AI and GPU-enabled products. Over the past 2 years, what areas have changed the most and how the company is thinking about and investing in AI features on how you're integrating those into the marketplace?

Jamie Iannone

executive
#16

I think the interesting thing, there's no part of our customer experience and no part of how we work internally where we're not considering or leveraging generative AI to make a dramatic step change improvement. So the example that I just talked about there was in selling. So in selling on the platform, not only can we do everything, we'll write the description for you. We'll figure out all the key data fields, we'll tell you how to price it because we have amazing pricing data of where you should be listing that product. We can also change the background. So we can take a picture on this carpet and put it on a gorgeous stand inside a beautiful landscape in a matter of under a second really showing off the inventory. So there's so many applicable areas on the selling side to streamline that selling experience. And my goal is to basically make it easier to sell on eBay than to throw out. So we can unlock the over $3,000 of inventory sitting in people's houses and less than 20% of that is online. We're doing the same thing on the buy side with features like explore this endless feed of really relevant information based on AI. We're using it in our marketing for the subject lines that we write that can be really tailored to the long tail of inventory that we have on the platform in a really compelling way. And then when you look internally inside of the company, we're using it across the board. In all the areas you would expect, 90% of the queries we handle and customer support are self-service queries, which have gotten tremendously better with the use of generative AI. Our marketing team was using it to generate all of the copy that we do for how we communicate with our customers. Our engineers, 3/4 of them use Copilot tools every day to make their jobs easier, the finance, legal, et cetera, all across the company. It's become a really important game changer to how we work as a company and how fast we can move and innovate, and I'm excited by both what we're doing for customers and how it's changing how fast we can innovate as a business.

Nathaniel Feather

analyst
#17

Okay. That's great. And with those features also comes associated investments, some of these products are expensive. Can you talk to how you're managing the incremental costs associated in your model selection strategy? And then on the early gen AI features, you have launched. How is that ROI compared to traditional product development?

Stephen Priest

executive
#18

I think taking off what Jamie just talked about, and I think about the overall ecosystem, we've now had over 10 million sellers use some of our AI features. We've got nearly 200 million listings that are on the overall platform and several billion dollars of GMV have come with a lot of these AI initiatives. And so the investments are paying off, and we're leaning in, Jamie talked about, both on the customer-facing side and for the company overall. We've driven a continued momentum around commercial models, around open source and particularly our own large language models that we've developed in-house with best-in-class technology and infrastructure. And despite the levels of investments, we've only continue to drive between 4% to 5% of our revenue in CapEx, which is a real testament to the team, and that's for the second year running, while we continue to bring increases in GPUs into the architecture of the company. Our large language models are 100x larger, but the efficiency and the effectiveness of those models are driving better experience for customers and ultimately driving better revenue. And so what I like about the eBay financial model, whether it's the OI generation, whether it's the strength of the balance sheet, we are using generative AI to continue to create capacity internally. We were able to drive efficiencies in terms of customer support. Our engineers that Jamie talked about, all those support areas of the business. And what that does is creates capacity for us to reinvest in the business. And then ultimately, generate the increase in operating income, ultimately driving positive sustainable GMV, which we laid out in the color for the full year 2025.

Jamie Iannone

executive
#19

And you asked about what does customers experience, what's their satisfaction. So if you look at features like magical listing, it has over a 90% customer satisfaction rating, customers love the ease and convenience. Where we've rolled it out in the whole market, what we've seen is a double-digit decrease in the time that it takes to list an item, a double-digit increase in the completion of those items on the platform. And so it really makes kind of a huge difference to have all of the benefits of generative AI there. I think more importantly is when you look at it and our goal is to make it so easy to unlock that inventory. I bet each one of you can think around stuff that you have in the house that if it's a few seconds, you'd want to sell that on eBay. If you can't think of anything, think of your spouse because I'm sure you can think about your spouse having stuff that they could sell. Usually, that's an easier thought exercise for people. And when you think about the power of being able to unlock what's in people's closets, garages, basements and bring it online because you can list it in seconds, that's a massive TAM that's generated by generative AI. And then you think about all the ways that we're changing the buying experience on the platform. Think about things like recommendations, right? For decades, recommendations have been built on technology that says, you bought this, you likely want to buy this. And it's been generally using kind of very interesting co-purchase data to create those recommendations. Well, now with generative AI, we can do so much more than interesting co-purchase data. I bought my daughter an oboe on the platform, and there's amazing co-purchase data, but I certainly don't need to buy a second oboe, but what generative AI will tell you is, the first thing you need to buy is some oboe reeds, you need to soak them in water and then get a oboe stand, oboe case, oboe books, et cetera. And so our ability to take this amazing long tail of inventory. We have 2.3 million billion listings on the platform and use generative AI to make recommendations more compelling, to make search more compelling, to make the description of those items more compelling is pretty fantastic. And that's why I feel excited to be CEO of this company right now with this technology is all of that 30 years of data plus what's generally available applied to our experience can really help the third pillar of our strategy, which I call magical innovation.

Nathaniel Feather

analyst
#20

Okay. Really interesting. Now you mentioned the 2.3 billion listings on eBay. Of that, 1.1 billion are promoted, so around 50% or so. Interested to hear, given the success you've seen in that business effectively doubling the penetration over the past 2 years, what levers do you have to pull here? And how should we think about that mix between incremental number of Promoted Listings, increasing revenue per listing, and ramping the adoption of some of your new ad formats?

Jamie Iannone

executive
#21

Yes. Look, we continue to believe we have a long runway of growth of opportunity for advertising. We grew our first-party advertising business 17% last year. And that's on the back of our existing products plus some of our new products. In fact, our product that's been around the longest, which is our CPA-based product. We call that Promoted Listings general. We launched that in May of 2015. So nearly 10 years ago. And that's still the largest growth driver today. So you see there's still massive opportunities even our existing product portfolio. And then we have our newest products in CPC and Promoted Listings Advanced in promoted stores and promoted off-site, which have a lot of potential, if you think what we created just with Promoted Listings general. The second thing I'd say is we continue to find a healthy ROAS for our sellers. So there's in a nice return on their ad spend. We're doing it in really smart ways where we're not increasing ad load on this site, but really driving better optimization. The last thing I'd say is that what we've been focused on is making the product easier and easier to use and adopt for our sellers. So when we started rolling out our CPC-based product, you had to build your campaign, what keywords do you want to use, what's the maximum bid you want to have, all the different elements to run a CPC-based campaign. But we wanted to increase the penetration of sellers that could use it. So now we've used AI to really simplify that whole experience, just give us your budget, give us what you want to accomplish, and we'll take care of doing that for you on the platform, which has been really super compelling. Over the course of the last year, we brought out a new advertising dashboard that every day gives you AI-driven suggestions about campaigns that you could be running or other ways to optimize your ads. So it's a long way of saying we continue to see a lot of potential in our advertising portfolio and existing products as well as new products that we've launched.

Nathaniel Feather

analyst
#22

Okay. Great. Now switching gears a little bit in 4Q, you made U.K. C2C selling free and have launched a host of features to support that. We'll get to monetization in a minute. But first, what changes have you seen in seller acquisition and behavior along with demand since then? And how should we think about the applicability of those early learnings to help improve other areas in the place?

Jamie Iannone

executive
#23

Yes. First, let me talk about why C2C is so important to us. I call C2C the inventory gold on the platform because it brings really unique inventory that in general, a B2C seller is not selling. Think about, I bought my daughter used oboe that had been 18 years old that we've been used from 1 owner, no B2C seller has product like that. All of the unique inventory where C2C seller is not trying to make a return on that, they just want to maximize the cash they're going to get for something lying around. So that's why we focused on C2C. And what we launched in the U.K. was a whole series of changes. We changed the fee structure where we eliminated final value fees and went to buyer fees. We made massive improvements in the listing experience. We added a new feature called eBay Balance, where by default, when you go to sell something on the platform, that money ends up in your eBay Balance for you to use to shop. We added better improvements to our local experience and how we shopped locally on the platform. And what we've seen is a 20-point increase since launch of new first-generation listings on the platform, of new and reactivated listers. We're seeing a higher ASP for C2C. So people aren't bringing on their low-quality inventory. They're bringing on great inventory onto the marketplace. And overall, we've seen a double-digit increase in the GMV and C2C this is where we were prior to this rollout. So we're really excited by what we're seeing. More importantly is some of the underlying behavior. So we've talked about if you get sellers, buyers to sell, they're 2x to 2.5x more valuable as a buyer. And eBay Balance is really helping that. So think about you go to sell a couple of things out of your closet and you've generated a couple of hundred bucks sitting in our eBay Balance. Most people now look at that as free money that I can go spoil myself and buy other stuff on eBay. And that's exactly what they do. The majority of the eBay Balances are being used to buy stuff back on the platform even though they have other options for you to use those dollars. So we're happy with the metrics that we're seeing. We're still in the middle of ramping certain programs, managed shipping is the fifth element that I didn't talk about. But in managed shipping, eBay does more of the hard work around shipping and providing items for customers, that's ramping up. We'll begin mandating that in Q2, but it's another example of taking all the friction out of the experience and making C2C a really, really healthy part of our business.

Nathaniel Feather

analyst
#24

Okay. Great. And on the remonetization, you mentioned managed shipping there, you also have the new buyer protection fee. Together, that those should lead the U.K. C2C take rate above where it was prior. Can you remind us the timing of how those fees ramp through 2025, and the impact of revenue and operating income? We've seen some other marketplaces struggle to add buyer fees. Can you touch on the demand elasticity you've seen and how it's altered the supply-demand balance?

Stephen Priest

executive
#25

Yes, I'll cover that. So the one thing I would say that Jamie alluded to, we've been very thoughtful and very measured in terms of how we've rolled this out in our second largest market. And that's been very, very intentional. We rolled back the seller final value fees in the fourth quarter ahead of the holidays. We're very thoughtful about the communication to consumer to make sure that we did this in a very thoughtful way. We've then ramped the monetization or remonetization in the U.K. We started with the ramp of managed shipping through the fourth quarter. That will continue through this quarter and into the next one and ultimately begin mandating that in the second quarter. Also with regards to the buyer protection fees that Jamie alluded to, we launched those a couple of weeks ago, and that's now is 100% in U.K. C2C. So you're exactly right, Nathan. By the time we have fully ramped this and gone through the whole process, our U.K. C2C take rate will be higher than when we started the initiative back in the fourth quarter of last year. As it pertains to the full year operating income and everything else with regards to eBay monetization. Advertising will continue to be an important vector of monetization for us across the platform. But when I think about our North Stars, it's about driving sustainable, profitable GMV growth and operating income dollars. That's how we think about every day about what we can drive on eBay. And I was pleased to be able to give the color last week as a result of the ramp in the overall U.K. C2C in terms of initiatives that we've talked about today and the continued ramp to drive positive operating income growth in 2025 and low-digit positive GMV growth for the year.

Nathaniel Feather

analyst
#26

Okay. Great. Now mentioning that guidance, you guided to flat FX-neutral operating income margins in fiscal '25, albeit with about 100 basis points of some one-off impacts. Over the medium term, how are you thinking about the cadence of margin expansion or contraction as compared to revenue and then GMV?

Stephen Priest

executive
#27

We're very fortunate eBay to have the financial architecture that we have. We have great operating leverage with the business, and when we grow the top line, that drives a healthy P&L. Again, I'll just go back to the plan, which we're very, very focused on operating income dollar growth. You've talked about flattish margins in 2025. We've got about 70 basis points of net headwinds really driven by 3 key factors: one is about the accounting change, around the depreciable assets that we have and the life of those. Secondly, with regards to the managed shipping dynamics that we talked about. And then thirdly, with regards to M&A, and that's offset by some positive FX. So overall, flattish margins for 2025, 70 basis points of net pressure, but ultimately, it's about driving operating income growth for the enterprise.

Nathaniel Feather

analyst
#28

Okay. Great. And on the gross margin outlook, a number of moving pieces here, depreciation dynamics, the U.K. managed shipping launch, payment optimization is ramping, off-site advertising, et cetera. Can you help us just sort through some of the puts and takes here and what the shape of gross margin could look like over '25.

Stephen Priest

executive
#29

Yes, you're exactly right. I mean we don't ultimately guide gross margins. We've given some color with regard to operating income growth and ultimately operating margins. But you're exactly right. As we continue to look at things like the benefits associated with scale, the benefits of cost of payment initiatives. We've done a lot of work, not just in terms of wallet that Jamie talked about in the U.K., but other initiatives that's sort of driving efficiency in terms of overall cost of payment, and other items that continue to sort of drive the benefits offset by some of those gross margin implications around managed shipping, traffic acquisition costs associated with the Promoted Listings off-site mechanic. But I'd just go back to it, Nathan, which is about we will drive efficiencies and we will drive momentum in our business to look at operating income dollars, and there will continue to be puts and takes with regard to overall gross margins as we go through 2025.

Nathaniel Feather

analyst
#30

Okay. Now before we wrap, I have to ask about tariffs and de minimis. How are you thinking about the potential direct and indirect impacts of tariffs along with your ability to mitigate some of those and connected, how exposed are you to changes in de minimis exemption?

Jamie Iannone

executive
#31

Yes. So first on de minimis, let me size it. So if you look at our China business, about 5% of our business of GMV is China into the U.S. quarter to overall is a little less than 10%, but 3/4 of that inventory is actually forward deployed to the end markets. And so it's already applicable to the current tariffs that are in there. And of the other 25 -- roughly 25%, about half of that is shipped to a service that we provide called SpeedPAK, which helps with tracking, et cetera. So also can take some of the complexities out. So the majority of that work being forward deployed was really already done by sellers, because they wanted to shorten the shipping times and make it easier for customers in those end markets. We feel good about our ability to navigate this in the guidance that Steve provided for Q1 and our outlook, we've contemplated a number of range of scenarios of what could happen and what we put forward, but there's 2 things that help: one is just the general marketplace elements of substitutability of demand across so many different markets, which helps us. The second is, if tariffs do cause prices to rise, eBay is a great place to come for values on the marketplace. In general, what we've seen is that we're a little bit more resilient than other marketplaces or than other places in challenging times because of the used, the refurbished, people really wanting to find a value that's there in the marketplace. So we'll continue to do what's right to support our buyers and sellers in the marketplace. As we saw during COVID, the vast breadth of sellers that we have causes a very dynamic marketplace. And in some ways, that's helpful to us. with changes to the system, but we feel well prepared to kind of help them navigate through it.

Nathaniel Feather

analyst
#32

Okay. Great. Steve, within the investment portfolio, you've had a variety of monetization events in the back half, selling a portion of your Aurelia stake estate, tranche of the Adyen warrants, and the Gmarket stake sale. How do those influence your thinking on the magnitude and timing of shareholder returns? And with those leading your cash investment balance above $7 billion, can you recap your capitalization philosophy more broadly and how M&A might be into that?

Stephen Priest

executive
#33

Yes. And thank you for pointing out. I stand back, I've been really taken by the amount of returns that we've been able to generate for shareholders over the last couple of years. You're exactly right. We monetized our Adyen stake. We had 2 tranches of the Adevinta and then ultimately the Aurelia stake that we managed to sell off during the fourth quarter, the second option that they had. And then obviously, with the Gmarket investment that we had, as a result of monetizing those assets, over the last 3 years as well as the operating cash flow that we've had, we've announced to return $9.2 billion to shareholders through repurchasing dividends over that period, which is about 150% of our free cash flow. We've been great allocator of capital. Our philosophy hasn't changed, and it will not change, and what we have ultimately talked about is generating at least $2 billion of share buyback in 2025. In addition to the quarterly first quarter dividend that we just announced, which is an incremental $0.02 to $0.29 per share in the first quarter. So very pleased with the levels of monetization that we've driven. I'm also very, very pleased about the levels of shareholder returns that we continue to generate.

Nathaniel Feather

analyst
#34

Okay. Now a few minutes left here. I want to ask you both. What are the 1 or 2 things you think investors most underappreciate or misunderstand about the eBay story?

Jamie Iannone

executive
#35

Yes. I think probably 1 is just the momentum that we have in the business. If you look at focused categories, we believe we're actually gaining share in aggregate across those growing 5%. And when you look at the market right now, if you look at U.K. and Germany, and those are our second and third largest markets, when you look at e-commerce growth rates last year, they were kind of flattish in a world where GDP is growing, the forecast to grow 30 or 75 basis points in each market, respectively. And we play more in discretionary e-commerce, which, as you know, is further kind of challenged, you see that from some of what our competitors are releasing. So for us to put up kind of 3 quarters of positive growth in this macro environment with some of those headwinds in front of us really shows kind of the underlying health and strength of the business. You see a lot of our marketing efforts now, whether that's the work we're doing with influencers, with Emma Chamberlain or Margherita Missoni, the work we are doing in each of our geographies to talk about the value proposition, really engaging audiences across demographics. But the younger demographic is very focused on what we're doing on sustainability, unused, and refurbished. And that's a great tailwind for eBay's business, especially in markets like Europe where they care much more about things like green parts and pre-loved, et cetera. So we're leaning into those tailwinds in a big way. And then lastly, I'd say is the opportunities that we have horizontally across the experience to change it with generative AI. I feel lucky to be CEO of this company right now with this technology, because we have 134 million buyers, we have 5 categories in the platform that are over $10 billion, we service 190 different markets. So when you think about all the capabilities that this opens up for us to be able to market in a different way for a long-tail customers, to make it so simple to list products on the platform. We actually think the TAM of non-new in season will grow faster than new in season over the next couple of years, and we're tapping into that TAM on the platform. When you think about the ability to change how we market to consumers using this technology, create differentiated experiences category by category, it's pretty exciting and compelling. And you combine that with our focused category growth work, and it shows you the real kind of momentum in eBay. So I'm excited to see what we'll produce. I think we're innovating at a faster pace than we ever have as a company before the way we've adopted these tools internally to change our pace of innovation is exciting. And what we hear from customers is we love it. They're giving us 90% CSAT. So I think too you're going to see us evolve over the next couple of years in a ways that we've never done launched new areas. eBay Live is 1 example. It's growing double digits quarter after quarter. And it's another new way we're unlocking supply and going after the enthusiast buyers. And I think you'll see that be a bigger part of what we expose to our buyers and sellers over '25 and '26.

Nathaniel Feather

analyst
#36

Okay. Great. Well, Jamie, Steve, thank you both so much for being here.

Jamie Iannone

executive
#37

Thanks, Nathan.

Stephen Priest

executive
#38

Thank you.

Nathaniel Feather

analyst
#39

Thank you so much. That was great.

This call discussed

For developers and AI pipelines

Programmatic access to eBay Inc. earnings transcripts and 32,000+ others is available through the EarningsCalls.dev REST API. Plans from $24.99/month — full transcripts, speaker segments, full-text search, and the recently-added /api/v1/transcripts/recent polling endpoint for ETL pipelines.