Analysts downgrade eBay, Donahoe Plans questioned
By Ed | January 4th, 2009 | Category: eBay | 3 commentsBritain’s heavyweight broadsheet, The Independent, reports from their New York correspondent that ebay has been downgraded on Wall Street and “John Donahoe, chief executive of eBay, is facing questions over his leadership”.
Analysts are predicting the company would post its first revenue decline in its history after performing poorly in Q4 compared to arch-rival Amazon.
Comscore reported traffic to eBay as down 16% year-on-year from 2007 to 2008, as Laura Martin, a media analyst at Soleil Securities, blamed John Donahoe’s strategy to downplay eBay’s auctions business.
“Consumer spending numbers are going down for all retailers, but eBay has particular problems because it is becoming increasingly difficult for customers to find the deals that they want on there, amidst all the clutter of fixed-price items. I don’t understand why eBay is making itself more like their competitors instead of less.”
In another investment note downgrading eBay, Jeffrey Lindsay, a Bernstein analyst, said the changes were not feeding through into improved user numbers, compounding other problems.
The auction site is still the world’s largest online second-hand car dealership, Mr Lindsay said, accounting for about 22 per cent of the company’s gross global merchandise value, but sales of such expensive items have plunged.
It’ll be interesting to watch stock market reactions to the eBay Q4 numbers due out later this month.
The Independent’s story was published on Christmas Eve.
Ed
“…Bay has particular problems because it is becoming increasingly difficult for customers to find the deals that they want on there, amidst all the clutter of fixed-price items. I don’t understand why eBay is making itself more like their competitors instead of less.” This is music to my ears. The sellers have understood it for more than a year, as have most of the employees, but at last even the analysts are catching up to the utter cluelessness of eBay management. Now, will the Board of Directors ever act, or will they continue to sit like potted plants?
WOW !
BONANZLE is gaining almost 2 THOUSAND users a WEEK now.
And just a while ago it was 1 thousand a week….
There are So Many Neat things to choose from…
And it’s gaining in many many categories.
MONEY ORDERS & CHECKS RULE THE DAY.
See You There ! ! ! ! !