EBAY Q1 FY25 earnings call EBAY

eBay acknowledges that its business is not immune to increased costs and friction from tariffs and changes to U.S. customs requirements. The Greater China to U.S. corridor accounts for approximately 5% of total GMV, with about three-quarters of this volume already forward-deployed and subject to existing tariffs. For the remaining quarter, 50% utilizes SpeedPAK, a shipping solution that integrates tariff and customs complexity, offering transparency to buyers. The company expects more sellers to adopt such solutions and believes its dynamic global supply and demand, particularly in pre-loved goods, provides an advantage during periods of rising costs.

Focus category GMV grew over 6% in Q1, now comprising more than one-third of total global volume. Collectibles, particularly trading cards, was the largest contributor, accelerating for the ninth consecutive quarter. Innovations like PSA data integration into item pages and direct shipping to PSA for grading have enhanced the trading card experience. Fashion, including luxury and pre-loved apparel, is also a key focus, with new AI-powered discovery experiences and enhanced condition grading standards launched.

The U.K. consumer-to-consumer (C2C) initiative, launched in Q4, has materially improved C2C GMV trends and outperformed internal expectations. The introduction of a U.K. buyer protection fee in February significantly narrowed the initial monetization gap. Managed shipping is ramping up, simplifying shipping for C2C sellers and reducing costs, with plans to add pickup/drop-off capabilities and gradually mandate adoption for new and occasional sellers to close the remaining monetization gap.

eBay continues to leverage AI to enhance marketplace efficiency and intuitiveness. A simplified AI-powered listing flow, integrating 'Magical Listing' technology and Product Knowledge Graph, was rolled out to C2C sellers in the U.S., U.K., and Germany, resulting in 90%+ customer satisfaction, increased completion rates, and reduced listing times. 'Magical bulk listing' for B2C sellers has halved average listing time and is widely adopted for sports trading cards, demonstrating significant progress towards unlocking a larger recommerce market.

First-party advertising revenue grew 14% in Q1, driven by Promoted Listings general ads and Promoted off-site ads, with 3.7 million sellers adopting a Promoted Listing product. In payments, eBay expanded its partnership with Klarna for buy now, pay later solutions in the U.S., seeing average order values more than 3x the market average. The addition of Checkout.com as a new payments partner aims to enhance platform resilience and optimize authorization rates for global customers.

CFO Steve Priest will transition out, with Peggy Alford joining as the new CFO on May 12. eBay is also evolving its leadership structure to foster faster innovation and collaboration. Product and market teams will integrate under Jordan Sweetnam (Chief Commercial Officer), and engineering will consolidate under Mazen Rawashdeh (Chief Technology Officer). Eddie Garcia, Chief Product Officer, will be leaving the company as part of this evolution.