eBay CEO Jamie Lannone laid out the company’s long-term growth strategy at their recent investor day. We’re covering the highlights from the event, including product releases and a new storage facility.
On March 10th, eBay hosted an investor day this past Thursday. It was the first under new CEO Jamie Iannone — who took over in April 2020 — and featured presentations from many of the company’s top leaders.
The event gave the company an opportunity to share details about its growth plans for the long term. They also previewed a wide range of products “that will accelerate eBay’s tech-led reimagination” according to a press release from the company.
The new CEO has been busy working to streamline eBay’s portfolio of products and surrounds himself with leaders who have a focus on the future of the company. Read on to learn about the key points from the investor day.
eBay profiles long-term strategy for the future of the company; debuts ‘digital wallet’
eBay investor day 2022 was full of announcements and overviews of what to expect from the company in the coming years. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Iannone revealed that two-thirds of the leadership team is in a new role or new to the company. This makes sense as he’s taken the company in a new direction over the past two years.
He covered some familiar themes in his opening presentation. In recent years, the company started focusing on buyers looking for high-value items and specific product categories. They also integrated these strategies into their vertical strategy. Iannone stated that over 90% of the gross merchandise value on eBay now derives “from non-new in-season products.”
Iannone began his presentation by stating, “Over the past two years, we have fundamentally changed the trajectory of our marketplace. We have demonstrated we can improve customer satisfaction, accelerate our growth, help sellers thrive and attract and retain enthusiast buyers.”
Part of this trajectory change is eBay’s investment in their advertising business, which they plan to double, again, over the next four years. The company also made moves around Managed Payments that added incremental revenue totaling over $2 billion since the push began.
eBay announced a flat 3% revenue growth prediction for the 2022 fiscal year, which doesn’t stray from any previous forecast. And the company expects around the same — 3% to 4% — for the fiscal year 2023. However, they project a revenue increase of 5% in 2024. They are also holding to a predicted decline of 5% to 8% for gross merchandise value in the 2022 fiscal year. But they expect these numbers to climb 10% and 15% in fiscal years 2023 and 2024.
The company is also pushing an enormous investment into the trading cards and collectibles market. The company is already the leading platform within this investment category, but they want to grow even more. For investor day, eBay announced they’re building a storage building called the eBay vault. The 31,000 square foot secure storage facility will act as the fulfillment spot for both collectibles and trading cards. And they plan to expand their luxury goods offerings within the facility as well.
Launching next quarter, eBay aims to give both convenience and peace of mind to their collectibles customers with the eBay Vault. Items sent to the vault will be secure and authenticated. From there, owners can offer the products via eBay’s ‘instant sale’ feature and transfer ownership in seconds. Owners will be able to sell items without re-authentication, re-packaging, or having to ship the item. The eBay Vault will take care of everything.
But perhaps the biggest announcement from the investor day is eBay’s introduction of their first digital wallet. The company recently migrated to a new payment platform which worked to improve the user experience for their customers. But the wallet takes things to the next level. It gives their user base the convenience to both purchase items, pay seller fees, and manage accounts from one place. This news further fueled fires in the rumor mill that eBay may soon begin accepting cryptocurrency as payment. CEO Jamie Iannone recently told The Street that they’re currently studying this prospect. The company already accepts NFTs as payment.
With all the announcements, it looks like eBay now has a clear vision for where they want to take the company. Users can expect more high-tech developments and features that will give them more convenience and opportunities to grow their own revenue.
Read more at PR Newswire and Chain Store Age
Amazon acquired Veeqo, a Welsh start-up management company for online businesses
Though Amazon was quiet about the purchase for months, a Veeqo company blog post announced that Amazon acquired the company — along with key investor Octopus Ventures — back in November. Veeqo is a developer of tools that help online businesses sell products through Amazon and also off their platform.
The acquisition news wasn’t much of a shock as Amazon aims to grow their recently claimed 40% slice of the US e-commerce sales market. The company continues to make investments that dig into competitors like Walmart, Etsy, and eBay. Their aim is to enact policies that help them, for example, implement service charges for fulfilling orders on Walmart’s site. This allows them to get an indirect cut from those sales.
They already have a Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) program that allows sellers to store and ship products through Amazon — whether they’re selling the product on the Amazon home site or not.
Companies like FedEx, UPS, and Shopify, along with other third-party logistics providers, recently launched fulfillment services for their e-commerce customers. But Amazon keeps cutting the MCF rates to both attract new customers and hold on to their current customer base.
With the Veeqo purchase, Amazon will soon integrate the company’s robust tool set into their MCF program. This could drive potential customers away from other fulfillment providers.
Veeqo stated in the blog announcement, “We look forward to discovering all the ways we can work with Amazon to build on our existing tools, develop new services and, ultimately, serve you better.”
