Question
Here she comes.
Explaining why the big overseas investment - 100,000,000.00
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Awww darn. I missed it. I was too wrapped up in Wild Police Videos on SpikeTV. No way I'm changing that for Meg.
Now, put Meg in a fleeing vehicle weaving crazily on the road while black & whites chase her ... I'm there.
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I found the interview interesting.
Things in particular that caught my attention:
She never responded that I could see to the direct question about how eBay was going to deal with competition. The Big O was mentioned specifically.
She danced around the question about the seller community being unhappy about price increases. Her response seemed to be that eBay always raises prices in January; that on occassion eBay lowers prices; it's only a penny to list in stores (no mention of the increased store subscription fee which directly correlates with cost to place items in stores); and a lot of song an dance about raising fees will keep listings more vibrant? I think that was the word she used.
And the final point. Buy it on eBay, you'll get it cheap!
(and I'm wondering how sellers are supposed to keep items cheap with all the increase in fees)
I'm just jaded I guess.
Thanks for posting about the interview low-tide!
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Originally Posted by HarvestMoon
... Her response seemed to be that eBay always raises prices in January ... I'm just jaded I guess.
Yeah, and there used to be a "free listing day" around Christmas every year, but we all know what happened to that, don't we?
Harvest, I don't think you're jaded ... I'd label you realistic.
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And the final point. Buy it on eBay, you'll get it cheap!
Buy it on ebay and get it near free is more like it...penny auctions, 99 cent auctions, and free shipping. The only one paying are the sellers. Thanks Meggie hun...Now back to that wild Police chase...
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From the CNN front page link: eBay's poor report adds to market woes
After the close, eBay (Research) reported earnings that rose from a year ago, but missed estimates by a penny, and also issued a first-quarter sales and earnings forecast that was short of expectations.
The online auctioneer also announced a 2-for-1 stock split.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/01/19/mark...ewyork/nas.jpg The earnings and forecast sent eBay shares down around 12 percent in after-hours trade, and also pressured other Internet issues, including Amazon.com (Research), Yahoo! (Research) and Google (Research).
"EBay was given no mercy after hours," Riley added. "Followers were very dismayed by the guidance and that clearly was no help for the rest of technology."
http://money.cnn.com/2005/01/19/mark...ex.htm?cnn=yes
They pull in over 900 million bucks in Q4, make a quarter billion profit and announce that this quarter will be their first with sales over 1 billion.... and it's a poor, dissapointing report. No wonder they need to raise fees.
I still want to know how raising "success fees" makes the marketplace "more vibrant with new products appearing every day."
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Seemed like the big focus for meg was they are trying to expand the Chinese market.
Don't we get enough of that Chinese crap in WalMart already?
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low-tide -Yes!
This puts it in focus... look at the low...Yikes! After 6pm
http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.htm...true&symb=EBAY
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I heard Meg later on CNBC. The moderator had asked about what they heard was a 60% increase and that was Meg's lead in. I understood her to say basically the increases were not across the board, only in Stores, that the increases were no where near 50%, and that some fees went up and some down. True, they weren't "across" the board, increases were in Stores, and some went up and a few down.
But auction listing fees DID go up.
Maybe I missed something. But I'd swear I read that 10 day auction fees are double $0.40 soon and $0.20 prior (100%); the Buy It Now fees were a flat $0.05 are soon indexed on the auction price and can be up to $0.25 or five times higher (500%), and the Gallery item costs go up from $0.25 to $0.35 or a dime more (40%). I have used all three of these listing features on low cost items. So am I apparently missing something on how this is not a 50% increase and wouldn't affect me? Was it just me misreading it, or did the lising increases apply to auctions? I just re-read the eBay 2005 fees email, and I think auction listing fees increased.
As I think about this, perhaps Meg was thinking that if we add all the fees together with all the other fees, then the total increase isn't 50% of ALL fees. That's nice.
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I made a statement on another board that the only way to make real money would be to buy the stock when it splits. That was earlier in the day. After reading this thread here is the only thought I have.
Nothing can continue to soar or rather move upward. There is a plateau and then a fall. Or what goes up must come down. Can Ebay really do very much better than it already has? Certainly these foreign and other big take over purchase hit that pocket book pretty hard and the earnings would have been much higher had those transactions not occured. Also, I hear the Japan deal is going sour.
Can Ebay really expect members to be their sole support in such fantastic ventures of trying to maintain thier monopoly and please investors? After all when the fall does start the investors will dwindle. Oh they may be there now but when the sellers and buyers thin out to Yahoo standards why would someone want to hold Ebay stock? Why would anyone want to participate in the affiliates program?