EBay Walking Away From 'Legacy Tactics,' 'One-and-Done' Buyers: CEO

Refurbished electronics is a big area of growth across eBay’s largest markets, said CEO Jamie Iannone on a Q2 earnings call Wednesday. “Our certified refurbished experience is strengthening relationships with best-in-class brands by opening new sales channels.” Samsung Galaxy joined the nearly year-old program last month (see 2107290043). Global active eBay buyers totaled 159 million at the end of Q2, down 2% from the 2020 quarter when the world went into COVID-19 lockdowns but 3% over 2019, said Iannone. Changes in eBay’s “marketing mix and product investments” are focused on attracting and retaining “enthusiast buyers,” especially Generation Zers and millennials, he said. “In parallel, we have discontinued legacy tactics that led to low-value, infrequent or one-and-done buyers.” The proportion of “high-value buyers” is growing compared with a year ago, “and their spend on eBay is growing even faster,” said Iannone. “This higher-quality mix of buyers increases value for sellers and will lead to improved health of our ecosystem over the long term.” EBay’s aim is turning buyers “into lifelong enthusiasts on the platform and moving away from the tactics that we had in 2019, where it was really just about the number of active buyers, even low-value buyers, or one-and-done buyers,” said Iannone. “The whole organization pivoted to focusing on those high-value buyers” who spend more than $800 on the platform, buying six times a year or more, he said. These top 20% of buyers generate 75% of the platform’s gross merchandise volume, he said.