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According to Jeffries & Co analyst Youssef Squali, while eBay’s (EBAY) quarter to date listings is growing a healthy 39% YoY and is above his estimate for the quarter, traffic to the site has fallen by 11% year-over-year in October and November. eBay continues to have difficulty attracting users to the site mainly because the auction’s business has lost favor with consumers who are shifting to fix price platforms like Amazon (AMZN).
If the business does not improve, the analyst thinks that portends the sale of both PayPal and Skype, both of which would be catalysts for the shares. I assume he means management would use the cash to repurchase shares or make a special one-time payment to investors rather than plow it back into acquisitions. Or that since both are low margin businesses, then their exit would imply a higher multiple for the company as whole, although I doubt that. I think the sale of Skype is inevitable given the lack of synergies with the core operations, but I believe that the payments business should stay with the portfolio. If eBay sold the payments business, it would see the current synergies slowly erode due to lack of control. eBay's business model is one of the few web models, like online personals, that has matured. What ultimately becomes of this company is still a mystery to me. Several options have floated around in the past like merging with Yahoo (YHOO) or Google (GOOG). Both options are unlikely in the near-term, in my opinion, but if Microsoft (MSFT) fails to act on Yahoo in any capacity, then maybe the managements of both Yahoo and eBay can revisit that option in 2010. The rationale for combining the two is an exercise for a later date. But I leave it as just a thought for now. There is still a market for online auctions so management can continue to bleed that business for cash while investing in growing the fixed price business to better compete with Amazon. I would also continue to invest in payments to build out the Merchant Services business. Now that Bill Me Later is in the portfolio, eBay can have a run of the payments business on the web given largely failed efforts by others such as Google. I would also continue to invest and make acquisitions along the classifieds businesses and focus on better monetizing traffic through advertising. Other things on the to do list include: 1) rehauling the website, and I don’t mean redesign, I mean a huge technology upgrade; 2) license either Yahoo or Google’s search technology in order to have better search on the site. Clearly, the company hasn’t been able to do it on their own; and 3) keep working on getting users back on the site. If the overall market recovers, then eBay could likely recover with it – the rising tide thing. But on its own, I think the shares remain range bound. Trading at 5x EBITDA, I think downside is limited here, but wouldn’t chase the stock as there are more attractive investment opportunities in the space. Certainly I see few near-term catalysts for the shares short of a takeover attempt. From Jeffries & Co Analyst Youssef Squali: We are tweaking our estimates to reflect weakness in traffic and aSquali also points to weakness in autos, which represents 30% of GMV as a big negative. However, he expects eBay to meet the lower end of guidance.
sharp slowdown in autos. We're maintaining a Buy rating and $22 PT.
• Our proprietary tracking of eBay shows that global listings are up a
solid 39% Y/Y QTD (with US +52% Y/Y), for an estimated total of
850-880M for 4Q (+36% Y/Y at the mid-point), and well ahead of
our initial projection of 723M. While this points to significant
improvement in selection, weaker traffic trend reported by
comScore (see Exhibit 2), and negative auto reports (~30% of
GMV) imply that conversion rates and average GMVs will trend
lower, both sequentially and Y/Y.
• Traffic data shows that unique visitors to eBay declined 11.2%Y/Y
in Oct. and 10.9% Y/Y in Nov. while total visits declined 21.9% and
24.6% in these periods. This trend continued into the
post-Thanksgiving shopping season, with last week's data showing
uniques declining 9% Y/Y between Dec.1-5.
• What's been ailing eBay has been a consumer shift to fixed prices
(as per Amazon's results) and away from auctions. With the
maturation of eBay's core auction (down 8% Y/Y in 3Q08), it's
taking the company some time to move to a predominantly fixed
price format where it is doing relatively well (up 11% in 3Q08).
• Also positive, payments should show healthy growth from a) higher
penetration of PayPal on eBay, b) growth in Merchant services and
c) acquisition of Bill Me Later. For 4Q, we're conservatively
expecting growth of ~8% Y/Y vs. 29% Y/Y in 3Q.
• Overtime, we expect GMV growth to improve as the economy
recovers, as fixed price becomes >50% of GMV and as tweaks to
marketplace take effect. Failing this, a recap. through a sale of
Skype and/or a spin-off of PayPal becomes inevitable. Such a
move should prove positive for the stock.
• Bottom line, we expect eBay to make the quarter, albeit towards the
low-end most likely. We are tweaking our 4Q revenue estimate to
$2.09B from $2.12B while leaving PFEPS unchanged. For FY09,
our revenues remain unchanged but our PFEPS goes to $1.48 from
$1.53, on lower interest income and correction for a charge.
• The current valuation of $14.61/share implies a mere 2.0x our FY09
estimated EBITDA for the marketplace biz (Exhibit 1.) Our analysis
applies a market multiple of 9x for Paypal - the average EV/EBITDA
multiple for Visa (V) and MasterCard (MA) - 8x for marketing services and $1B for Skype. A more reasonable multiple for marketplace of ~5x would imply $21 fair value, roughly in line with our DCF valuation.
Valuation/Risks
EBAY is trading at 4.8x EV/EBITDA and P/E (GAAP, FT) of 16.7x on
FY09 estimates vs. the avg. for big Cap. Internets at 7.4x and 25.7x.
Our $22 PT is derived using a 5-year DCF. Risks include protracted
economic slowdown/lack of traction on newer initiatives.
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This article has 30 comments:
"Ebay has Matured"
Ya. That's when it's a GUARANTEED Money Machine....No Doubt.
But when you "Goose It " (Forbes) and maul it, rather than continue to let it generate A STEADY STREAM OF DOUGH....
Well then....this is what we have.
It was ALL UNNECESSARY.
It IS the C.E.O.'s fault Directly. ALL of it.
None of it can be attributed to the Economy.
Boots on the Ground.
Decent upside and low downside makes EBAY shares look like a very good play from today's quote.
eBay started to seriously slide when John Donahoe as CEO came out in front of changes which gutted the core of the marketplace and referred to any member that spoke out against the changes as 'noise'. His arrogant 'noise' label insulted the very customers he was trying to keep.
Led by an executive team that has barely used the marketplace, eBay is now headed for obscurity because they do not 'get' it anymore.
eBay, unlike Amazon, does not own inventory, and relies on sellers to provide merchandise to the site. This said, it is hard to understand why eBay executives have instituted so many anti seller policies over the past year.
Further proof of how out of sync eBay leadership is, they fail to understand that sellers are buyers as well. Alienating sellers diminishes their interest in purchasing from the site or doing business in any way with a company that is viewed as seller unfriendly.
eBay's increased fees across the board and forcing sellers to accept PayPal to entitle them to an even larger slice of sellers profits, has not improved the company's fortunes, but has motivated sellers to take their business elsewhere.
eBay has become a ship without a rudder, adrift in a marketplace they have lost control of.
eBay execs fail to understand that word of mouth is essential to the success of their marketplace. With sellers having nothing positive to say, buyers are going elsewhere.
Until eBay is led by a team of executives with vision and experience in what makes eBay tick, eBay is destined to become the next Internet bubble to burst.
Buyers and sellers alike have lost trust and confidence in current leadership over the series of poorly implemented policies, feedback changes, imposition of the failed DSR system, constant technical glitches, search that is horrible, forced PayPal etc...
eBay is now beyond reversing failed policy and system changes. eBay now has to replace the entire core of enthusiastic members which they have managed to chase in addition to changing the failed policies and defective systems.
The simplest solution would be for eBay to simply get out of being in the marketplace business since it is obvious they have no clue as to what it takes to make and keep a marketplace relevant and successful.
John Donahoe, Lorrie Norrington and company will go down in history as the executives that managed to screw up a free lunch.
They are not the team that will lead eBay out of the disaster they created, they are the team that turned a marketplace with millions of happy members into a poor imitation of its competition with customers who have nothing good to say about the new experience.
This is unlikely to change until the book smart MBA's are removed, and replaced by a team of executives that know and understand what the eBay marketplace is.
The fix would be for Mr Omidyer to get back to work, and restore the core principles upon which eBay was founded. He had the right ideas and the company became a worldwide multi billion dollar success under those principles.
As eBay has moved further away from those founding principles, the foundation upon which eBay was built has crumbled, to the point that now the entire structure is in danger of collapse.
If I hear this one more time...frankly, I'm gonna puke!!
Ebay has been pushing sellers into fixed 30 day listings. Auctions are STILL beating out fixed price listings on ebay...somebody do some research! Its a fact...deal with it!
What IS ruining ebay is John Donahoe. He's destroyed the trust and faith of the small seller - who made the excitement on Ebay by selling their unique, rare and vintage items - and is pandering to big box sellers who sell the same garbage I can get in my neighborhood Walmart! Until analysts realize that they will continue to be off the mark as far as Ebay is concerned. Almost any seller who posts here will tell you the same story.
Why is the interest and the excitement gone? A two year old could probably tell you. Its being crushed in favor of big box cut and dried listings that offer nothing new. Its being crushed by outrageously high final value fees imposed upon small sellers in order to help subsidize the free listings ebay is giving those big box sellers! Ebay is in effect, KILLING Ebay!
Thousands of small sellers left the site - either to go to smaller venues of to stop selling altogether. Buyers are losing interest in what's left. Open your eyes people...this isn't really all that difficult to grasp...if you do your homework and get your head out of the numbers. Ebay has proved one thing in all these years...they are masters at number manipulation and you guys eat it up!
Meanwhile, the auction business struggles on, on a degraded platform full of glitches with far too many changes, all of which are designed to help the fixed price business and not the auction business. eBay originally tried developing the fixed price business on a separate site, but it failed, so now they are jackhammering the original site.
Analysts: Stop watching the listing numbers. They are meaningless. eBay can manipulate them at will. Watch the traffic numbers and the margin numbers. They tell the true tale.
This is something the small sellers are much less effective at--simply because small sellers don't have the broad inventory--so the repeat business goes back to eBay.
As a seller - ebay is a mess for me -- the only thing that keeps me there is a lack of an clear alternative for auctions in my category.
I dumped my ebay stock at $25 (at a loss) and I'm sure glad I did...
If anything, I'd be short not long right now...
What they have done to the company is just WRONG, not only in the moral sense which is not even debatable, but in a business sense as well. If the majority of the stockholders actually understood the cause of the plummeting value they would be requesting John Donahoes head on a platter.
His innovative disruption certainly IS innovative in the sense that what he's doing hasn't been done before, and that is.....telling his customers, you know....the ones who pay their salaries, and keep the lights on, and who for years enthusiastically promoted ebay by positive word of mouth, that they're no longer wanted or welcome. The fact that it's disruptive is the understatement of the decade.
The following quote from John Donahoe is one of the most asinine things I've ever had the displeasure of reading:
"We had to create a vision of the future so people could let go of a very successful past."
I'm still unclear what his vision of the future is, but he has definitely succeeded at letting go of a very successful past.
He has cost thousands of stock holders millions of dollars, and thousands of sellers their livelihoods.
You cannot abuse your customer base and expect continued loyalty and success.
I cannot even think of another company who's customers were as in love with it as people were with ebay when it was at it's peak. It was win/win for everyone involved.....the buyers found unique and exciting items for great prices, the sellers could make great money from home, the stockholders weren't getting screwed, and ebay was making money hand over fist. That could still be the case today, but it's the opposite and the reasons why are completely unnecessary.
If you walked into Walmart and instead of hearing "welcome to walmart!" you heard "we don't really want you around anymore, and to show you just how much we mean it, we've raised all the prices, and put obstacle courses down each aisle" how much longer would you continue to shop there? This is what John Donahoe has done to ebays customers, THE SELLERS. I'm not sure what he thinks THE BUYERS are going to buy when the sellers are no longer there.
They've been very busy running off the small seller who offers bargains and unique items, while recruiting big sellers like Buy.com who clearly aren't paying listing fees, they can't be or they'd be losing money.....they have offerings like a roll of Bounty paper towels for $3 with shipping for $7.50......a single ballpoint pen for $1.05, with a shipping price of $7. I don't know anyone who would pay $10 to have a roll of paper towels shipped to their house, do you? I'm assuming buy.coms motivation is free advertising for buy.com, and I KNOW ebays motivation is the thousands of listings they're gaining to replace the listings now missing because of all the sellers who have left.....that way the stockholders can't see the dramatic decrease in listings.
Traffic is down over the past few months, but those numbers would be so much worse if it weren't for ebay and microsoft PAYING people to shop on ebay with their 30% cash back coupons. I'd love to see the numbers if it weren't for that.
The guy has an MBA, he can't be this dumb, it's not possible. We're either dealing with a major ego problem OR a sinister plan.......sort of like chemo therapy....take you to the brink of death to kill of the cancer, then build you back up again. If they can get the stock low enough, which they seem to be doing.....the big wigs can buy a ton of it on the cheap, then reverse these horrible changes, get ebay back on track, and make billions.
I used to make my sole living on ebay, now I won't even log in. I wasn't just a seller, I was a buyer too, as most sellers are. I used to buy my entire christmas on ebay, I don't think I've purchased anything there in a year. That's another one of the things they don't seem to understand, buyers and sellers are BOTH buyers and sellers.....run off the sellers and you're also losing sales.
When I read about all the changes that have been made, it feels like an episode of punk'd. It's so ridiculous that it's hard to believe it's real. In fact, I've told many people of the details and they actually LAUGH, they think I must be mistaken because no company would PURPOSELY self destruct......except ebay apparently.
I gave Donahoe an F on his first year end report card as CEO in the last article I wrote. I must have got it right too because eBay DELETED nearly every post that made reference to the article.
What these analysts fail to realize is that eBay is about small sellers. They made eBay and now they're are taking it away - piece by piece in the media, in the courtroom, and by word of mouth because Donahoe destroyed the one thing that made eBay work - trust.
Happy Holidays!
Let us look in a bit more detail at that allegation that auctions are falling out of favour and fixed price sales are booming. Auction sales may be down slightly, I'm quite happy to accept the 8% figure, but that is hardly surprising from the number of sellers who have left in disgust at Ebay's policies rather than there own downturn in sales. The Medved figures actually show that in the categories that are traditionally dominated by auctions, auction sell-through rates have remained consistently high, and in collectables have actually increased from approximately 40% to approximately 50% over the last three months. On the other hand the sell-through rates for fixed price listings for books, one of the categories that the likes of buy.com have moved into has plummeted from about 45% to about 15%.
These figures are not difficult to obtain, yet I have always found that an analysis based purely on numbers can never give a satisfactory answer to the question as to whether to invest in a company and if so at what price. On that basis I would not invest in Ebay at any price as long as the current policies and management are in place.
They're the ones in the trenches, and know what they need, and how best to fight the war.
eBay's Generals TELL their troops (sellers) what they need, and what is good for them.
These paper Generals forget that theirs is an all volunteer army, and most of the 'troops' are going, or plan to go, AWOL!!!
In light of the economic climate, one would think that Ebay would be having upwardly spiraling record breaking numbers.
WHY NOT?
How much bail out money do you suppose the American people are willing or even able to absorb? The writing has been all the wall for a very long time. Why didn't the experts notice?
Yo, Ebay, the offshore call center for paypal, need extensive overhauling they have no idea what a caller is talking about . And even though I resent having to pay to call an American based company in order to be understood, it's a small payoff for giving me better documentation.
Also,why would ebay sell PayPal,too buy shares back?No way imo.
Who would pay $4 billion for Skype?(besides Meg Whitman.)No one.
Why would the old Ebay ever want to be another Amazon?What was it the analyists saw that made them think of comparing Ebay to Amazon?
They are both on-line businesses? there was no comparison.
Ebay has now lost it's UNIQUENESS. The sellers (millions,is my guess)have migrated and are starting all over again to build their unique businesses,elsewhere(a... years of building Ebay's uniqueness).......they were the uniqueness,not Ebay.All the Powers that be,had this incredible idea to slowly eliminate those sellers.(and yes those sellers where also Ebay's biggest buyers).... for what? Another Amazon?
I clearly dont get it.
i know tons of former sellers that used to make $100K or more a year that now sell off of Ebay. i see that they dont even advertise the " you can get IT on ebay " anymore since you really cant !! lol
thats it ebay keep taking $ out of of Americans and give it to China we dont need the money anyways.
Ebay " the worlds largest dollar store "
For example a year or so ago CORE format (auction/fixed price) was once about 70 cents (35 cents to insert it 35 cents for a gallery picture) for a 7 day listing. NOW , they eliminated the gallery picture fee so the fee is 35 Cents for as long as 30 days. Of course listing numbers are going to be different.
The decline in traffic and slower unique visitor build is really the guts of the problem and one Ebay can correct. This is the most poorly marketed brand name on the planet. They squandered goodwill, hurt their base, advertised poorly ,never appealed to the second generation internet people and youth and gummed lots of things up.
I can say the people that work for Ebay for the most part are awesome (both past employees and current ones). Some have a feel for what must be done and what has gone wrong. Some changes have been made and more will come.
This stock should be humming with a downturn like this as it creates tons of supply of low cost stuff to buy and buyers are seeking low cost stuff in a downturn as well.
Incredible collections of collectibles are coming on to the market for the first time in a long time and if Ebay could get on track it could use this downturn to it advantage.
I hope for the best for the people at Ebay and their shareholders.
Marty
Amazon and eBay do not own any merchandise. They are venue sellers! Amazon will warehouse seller merchandise for a fee. However, Less and less Amazon sellers are sending their merchandise to their warehouses. They are following in the steps of eBay sellers.
I ordered two Areogrow units on December 12 ---December 20 they sent me one unit, yet billed me for both. I called Amazon. A woman in India resdponded! I could not understand one word she said other than; call Seller...Call Seller...Amazon can do nothing...you must call seller!
I have tried to call the seller... I have emailed the seller...no answer.
I will now call my credit card company and get the other $124.00 charge removed.
All eBay haters please stop hailing Amazon as a better place to buy! Amazon has the same sellers as eBay. Amazon has the same problems eBay has....Sellers are jumping ship! They are not making any money.
When I buy from Amazon, I buy "from amazon" - not the myraid amazon marketplace sellers.... It's not worth it for the small amount you might save on the item (vs buying from amazon itself) to have to deal with an unknown quantity....
It's like running into the most annoying salesman in a store who is trying to sell you everything but what you asked for. How long are you going to stay in that store...and are you likely to come back? These questions are easily answered yet they somehow stumped ebay.
To me, it's either intentional self imposed chaos, or it's complete ignorance and lack of leadership that has placed ebay where it precariously sits today. Now, apparently these people like J.D have some education and a business background...so this only leaves the "intentional" option. Clearly this is either sabotage or a more sinister plan like mentioned earlier; They are trying to bring ebay's stock to an all-time low so they can reverse the changes and (hopefully) reap the billions in rewards when the sellers come flocking back....But, will the sellers come back or have they found a better place to migrate to?
In regards to e-bays "visits" being up. What does a visit have to do with anything? Sales are everything, so why put any credence in "visits?" I know many people visit ebay to research pricing so they can list their items on alternative sites for a better/comparable deal than is offered on ebay. That would account for many visits to the site. The 30 day listing has obviously impacted the amount of inventory on ebay...the last time I looked at basic business 101...inventory is supposed to move. People are just using their Internet browser to browse ebay...not buy or sell. Their sell-through rate is horrible and the price sellers are getting when item sell is below cost (then throw in free shipping) which, of course only exists in ebay fantasy land.
So, tell me...how long will people continue to sell on ebay at a loss? Then what will be available for buyers to buy? It's not really that complicated. As has been stated repeatedly -- sellers are buyers too.
If J.D is playing the game of "lowballing" this stock so they can reap possible future rewards, he'd better understand that there are a lot of people that wouldn't come back to ebay if they were paid to sell there. So, if ebay's image isn't tarnished enough...the last step to complete, utter, failure will be when ebay is nothing more than a "joke" in the minds of the masses and, like so many things these days, their 15 minutes of fame will have expired. The attention span of today's generation has not been accounted for in ebay's policies either. The hard-working people that have been tossed aside like garbage are now your competition...and they've already built an ebay once before and, by their experience, they'll do it again..and believe me, they're motivated. Ebay has started a wave that is growing and growing to the ultimate conclusion...SUNAMIBAY...
Donahoe is the one that doesnt like auctions not the average ebay user!
Prior to Donahoe taking over the reins at ebay, our company had awesome sell thru rates on most anything we listed auction format. As soon as ebay implemented best match and heavily favored fixed price listings in their default search engine, our sales plummeted so draastically we were forced to close our two ebay stores after having been successful power sellers for nearly 6 years on both store accounts.
Virtually everone that uses ebay thoroughly hates the new search engine. Most auction listing get buried in nondefault searches than many ebay users dont ever even see. Between Ebay's new highly disputed DSR system, Forcing the issue of fixed prices and free shipping, new 21 day hold on paypal funds, non-existent customer support, and purposely trying to drive off all small businesses and casual sellers....Ebay has lost a substantial number of high quality sellers many of whom were some of the most avid shoppers in the site.
Most of the mega sellers ebay is heavily propmoting alll have their own website and meerely use ebay's seller platform to generate customers for their own website which has caused a deterioration of ebay buyer traffic.
Sellers of all sizes have reestablished themselves on either their own website or one of the many lesser known buy/sell platforms and enticed many of their previous ebay buyers to shop on these new sites.
Sites like ecrater, etsy, ioffer, onlineauctions, ebids, bonanzle, Amazon and at least 20 other buy/sell platforms have experienced tremendous user growth this year, and the vast majority of that growth has been EX ebay sellers and EX ebay buyers.
Another reason for ebay's steady declines on both user traffic and revenues this year has come at the hands of Donahoe taking proactive steps to forcing many sellers of counterfeit goods off the site. Due to stricter federal enforcement and trademark owner pressures on ebay in recent times, Ebay for the first time EVER has been taken steps to ban many sellers offering counterfeit goods.
For years Ebay closed their eyes to the trademark infringement problem and reaped billions of dollars in revenues from the sale of luxury counterfeits on their site relying heavily in their credo "we're just a venue", and never took policing their site seriously for online fraud. This new crack down Donahoe has started has dramatically impact ebay's bottomline revenues and site traffic while sites like Ioffer.com are now the prodominate online site where much of these counterfeit luxury goods are bought and sold. In my opinion that's the main reason Ioffer has experienced 168 percent growth this year
Dollar Sales: $5.5 million vs. $15.1 million (175% growth)
- Unit Sales: 121,323 vs. 275,813 (127% growth)
- New Item Listings: 470,846 vs. 1,213,476 (158% growth)
- Traffic: 3 million visits vs. 9 million visits (198% growth)
- Page Views: 31 million vs. 80 million (158% growth)
- New Member Registration: 44,192 vs. 126,175 (186% growth)
In summary:
Ebay has forced a massive number of great, respectable small volume sellers off the site this year
Many of these small volume sellers Ebay has purposely forced off the site were not only sellers but regualr ebay shoppers.
Sellers of all business sizes have reestablished themselves on other buy/sell venues and taken some of their ebay buyers with them.
Ebay is heavily promoting "Big Box" sellers that all have websites and are quickly eroding ebay buyer traffic enticing buyer to shop their website when making future purchases.
Ebay has booted a large number of counterfeit luxury goods sellers that once generated huge revenues for ebay.
It's going to take one heck of alot of new "diamond sellers" and Ebay marketing to ever recover from the massive loss of users and revenues Ebay once counted on.
Ebay is going down the tube fast!
.
online.wsj.com/article...
You know, ebay and amazon are not the same kind of company. They should not even be compared to each other. That would be like comparing apples to oranges. The financial analysts who continue to do that are making an error. Ebay was an online AUCTIONEER. Amazon never was. Ebay sold used goods via individual sellers. Amazon did not, other than books with bar codes.
Don't confuse the two companies,or you will lose your shirts investing in either one of them.
Ebay's only chance of survival is to RETURN to being auctioneers,and to have a real auctioneer running the company the way it should be run. Like an auction company. That's how it got to be ebay! "Got it???" Hope SO!
read up..www.examiner.com/x-312...~y2008m12d23-Do-eBay-a...
I predict that even if ebay returns to a better way of doing business, they are still going to die a painful death because they have lose the TRUST of the good sellers and buyers and have shattered the illusion that they were the "only" place to play.
"Ebay was an online AUCTIONEER. Amazon never was."
That's not correct. Amazon did have auctions years ago - I know because I sold there.
I DID bid and win auctions on ebay,since 2000 as well as sell over the last few years. But now THAT company no longer attracts me either.Their auctions were the best thing on the net, in the old days. Now they are unsafe for sellers to risk to unscrupulous buyers, especially since ebay, INC. supports this kind of seller behavior, and does not protect the sellers from it.
But that's ok! I just joined GoAntiques, and they will have a very similar auction site to the "old ebay", except for one crucial difference: The sellers are supported there, the buyers are thrown off the site if they don't pay, and in general, the terms, conditions, policies, and agreements are all developed in fairness,equality, honor, and respect.
Ebay cannot compete on that level. They have very poor and deficient customer service for their sellers. Especially in light of the continuous increasing fees they collect from each seller who does not "rate" as a high income retailer.
I always said, if they want the small sellers, the old loyal individual auction sellers, and the part time sellers to leave. They should be transparent and just say so. Anyone would appreciate even just a LITTLE honesty from them. Now, there is nothing but deceit from their management.