eBay Q2 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 10, 2021

Key Takeaways

  • Strong Q2 financial results: Revenue grew 11% year-over-year to $2.7 billion, driven by payments and advertising, while non-GAAP EPS of $0.99 topped guidance and operating margin held at 33% despite higher investments.
  • Accelerated managed payments rollout: 71% of on-platform volume was processed through eBay’s payments system in Q2 (over 80% run-rate exiting the quarter), addressing unpaid-item friction and targeting 90%+ migration this quarter.
  • Portfolio simplification & shareholder returns: Completed the $13.3 billion Classifieds sale, agreed to sell over 80% of Korea business for $3 billion, raised 2021 buyback authorization to $5 billion and returned $1.6 billion to shareholders in Q2.
  • Shift to high-value buyers: eBay is focusing marketing and product innovation on the top 20% of “enthusiast” buyers who generate 75% of GMV, driving higher spend per buyer even as total active buyers dipped 2% year-over-year.
  • Category-led innovation: eBay is scaling AI-powered tools, image-based listing and authentication in focus categories—trading cards, sneakers and luxury watches—to boost trust, conversion and cross-category buyer engagement.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
eBay Q2 2021
00:00 / 00:00

There are 11 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us and welcome to Ebay's earnings release conference call for the Q2 of 2021. Joining me today on the call are Jamie Iannone, our Chief Executive Officer and Steve Priest, our Chief Financial Officer. We are providing a slide presentation to accompany Steve's commentary during the call, which is available through the Investor Relations section of the eBay website at investors. Ebayinc.com.

Operator

Before we begin, I would like to remind you that during the course of this conference call, We will discuss some non GAAP measures related to our performance. You can find the reconciliation of these measures to the nearest comparable GAAP measures in the slide presentation accompanying this call. Additionally, all revenue and GMV growth rates mentioned in Jamie's and Steve's remarks represent FX neutral year over year comparisons unless they indicate otherwise. In this conference call, management will make forward looking statements, including without limitation, statements regarding our future performance and expected financial results. These forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, and our actual results may differ materially from our forecast for a variety of reasons.

Operator

You can find more information about risks, uncertainties and other factors that could affect our operating results and our most recent periodic reports on Form 10 ks and Form 10 Q and our earnings release from earlier today. You should not rely on any forward looking statements. All information in this presentation is as of August 11, 2021, and we do not intend and undertake no duty to update this information. With that, let me turn it over to Jamie.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Joe. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Today, I will begin the call with key highlights from the Q2. Then I will share some updates on the progress towards our strategic vision. At the end of my remarks, I will turn the call over to Steve, our new CFO, We will discuss our financial performance and outlook in greater detail.

Speaker 1

The Q2 of 2021 marked several important milestones in the ongoing transformation of eBay I want to thank our team for making it happen. We've accelerated our pace of innovation while executing several complex transactions. Their dedication and focus have created tremendous value for our customers and shareholders. Let me start with a few of our portfolio enhancements. We completed the transition of KeyBanc's classified business to Adeventa.

Speaker 1

This deal was originally valued at approximately $9,200,000,000 but a closing in June had appreciated to $13,300,000,000 Shortly after closing, we announced a deal with Premera to sell approximately 135,000,000 of our Adeventa shares were over $2,400,000,000 This agreement fulfills regulatory commitments while returning value to eBay shareholders. We also increased our share buyback plan for the year from $2,000,000,000 to $5,000,000,000 In June, we announced the sale of over 80% of our Korean business to Emark for approximately $3,000,000,000 bringing together 2 leading e commerce and retail companies that can unlock significant potential in Korea. We anticipate the deal will close either later this year or in early 2022. These portfolio changes allow us to intensify We set out on a multiyear journey to become the best global marketplace for sellers and buyers through a tech led reimagination. Our priorities were to grow the core, become the platform of choice for sellers and to cultivate lifelong trusted relationships with buyers by turning them into enthusiasts.

Speaker 1

To date, our progress is very encouraging. Our underlying growth is positive and the strategy is working. Q2 results were strong And all key business metrics met or exceeded expectations. Revenue grew 11%, driven by acceleration in the payments migration and advertising growth. We funded incremental investments in product development, while delivering $0.99 of non GAAP EPS, above the high end of our range.

Speaker 1

As expected, GMV declined 11% when compared to last year when results were heavily impacted by the initial pandemic lockdown. Importantly, Compared to pre pandemic levels 2 years ago, we are seeing positive underlying GMV growth. Our customer metrics remain healthy on both sides of our marketplace. Active sellers grew 5% to 19,000,000 globally as more small businesses and consumers continue to turn to eBay's global platform to reach millions of potential customers from around the world. This quarter, global active buyers totaled 159,000,000, down 2% versus last year and up 3% versus 2019.

Speaker 1

We have been focused on building lifelong trusted relationships with enthusiast buyers. Changes in our marketing mix and product investments have been focused on attracting and retaining these enthusiasts, particularly Gen Z and millennials. In parallel, we have discontinued legacy tactics that led to low value infrequent or 1 and done buyers. Our buyer base is starting to evolve based on this strategy. These high value buyers are growing compared to a year ago and their spend on eBay is growing even faster.

Speaker 1

This higher quality mix of buyers increases Advertising initiatives continue to deliver a simpler product experience and meaningful benefits for sellers, buyers and shareholders. Managed payments is now live in every market globally and the transition is progressing faster than expected. During the Q2, we processed 71% of on platform volume through managed payments. We exited Q2 at a run rate over 80% and are on track to processed over 90% this quarter. Managing the payments experience ourselves enables us to eliminate a pain point that sellers occasionally face on eBay unpaid items.

Speaker 1

Changes to checkout have been made to address this issue and today, 99% of fixed price transactions are paid upfront. We have also started to address this issue for best offers and auctions by asking buyers to provide a payment method in order to bid. This is a significant win for sellers as it frees up inventory and reduces their post transaction costs. Our advertising business continues to perform well. In Q2, ad revenue outpaced volume driven by Promoted Listings, which delivered almost $224,000,000 up 8%.

Speaker 1

More than 1,400,000 sellers promoted over 430,000,000 listings during the quarter. Growth was driven by higher adoption and technology that increased conversion. We see tremendous growth opportunities in advertising, both from our existing Promoted Listings offerings and from new product innovations. Following a number of successful trials in Q2, we are scaling several new products globally over the next few months. Previously, sellers could only promote fixed price listings, but now they can increase visibility for a flat fee on auctions to increase conversion.

Speaker 1

In June, we also introduced a cost per click ad product to sellers in our major markets. Initial results from the first 100,000 listings showed that sellers' return on ad spend was higher than industry benchmarks. We are placing more AI powered recommendations for pricing and keyword bidding into Seller Hub to help sellers drive particular volume. Finally, we are beginning to syndicate ads off eBay platforms to drive more buyers to listings. Importantly, sellers maintain control of pricing and visibility while benefiting from the scaled marketing capabilities of eBay.

Speaker 1

In addition to advertising and payments, we are driving a number of other sitewide initiatives. For consumer sellers, We are simplifying the selling process with a heavy focus on mobile. This includes easier label printing solutions in the app and faster listing through image or barcode scans. In trading cards where we first launched image based listing, sellers are able to match scans over 80% of the time. The time it takes to create a listing has been dramatically reduced and we plan to expand the capability to more product categories later this year.

Speaker 1

For small business sellers, we continue to expand and optimize their eBay toolkit. To help drive repeat businesses from enthusiasts to eBay stores, We built a CRM tool that enables sellers to fund and distribute their own coupons. Since launching a few months ago, Over 1,000,000 buyers have purchased items through these targeted campaigns. As you've heard me say in the past, we are focused on a number of categories where we are well positioned to serve both sellers and buyers. These categories are growing significantly faster than the overall business and I'm delighted with the progress our team is making.

Speaker 1

Our innovation playbook has included increasing customer satisfaction, improving trust, growing supply and marketing to enthusiasts. As we exited Q2, we have applied this playbook to approximately 10% of our volume across our top three markets. With our current plan and ongoing momentum, we expect to expand coverage to approximately 20% by the end of the year. 1 of these categories is trading cards. In North America, we continue to see substantial growth with approximately $2,000,000,000 of GMV in the first half of the year equal to all of 2020.

Speaker 1

Despite these strong results, we see additional untapped potential in the market that we plan to capture with further innovation. We recently launched price guide and collection tools aimed at trading card enthusiasts. These new features leverage Unparalleled inventory and pricing data allowing customers to view, manage and track the value of their collections in real time. A leader in trading cards with 25 years of transactional data, no one is better positioned to estimate the value of every card ever sold. In addition, the collection tool seamlessly tracks all eBay activity and offline inventory in one place.

Speaker 1

This makes it easy for enthusiasts to assess opportunities, quickly trade and increase the value of their collections. Sneakers and watches continue to outgrow our overall marketplace. Since launching 1 year ago, We have authenticated nearly 1,000,000 items, enabling a game changing level of trust. Both categories are seeing close to 90% customer satisfaction rates Unauthenticated transactions. Our sneakers business saw strong double digit growth despite tougher comps from a year ago.

Speaker 1

And based on the success, we have expanded sneaker authentication to the UK, Canada and Australia. Luxury watches are also sustaining double digit growth. Improved buyer trust is leading to strong cross category shopping behavior similar to what we have seen in sneakers. In fact, luxury watch buyers spent $8,000 on more than 50 items in other categories, well above the average eBay buyer. The next luxury category we are focused on is handbags.

Speaker 1

We plan to leverage a similar playbook from watches and sneakers to deliver higher NPS for buyers and sellers. We have started in the U. S. By authenticating handbags over $500 from major brands. Refurbished electronics continues to be another area of growth across our largest markets.

Speaker 1

Our certified refurbished experience is strengthening relationships with best in class brands by opening new sales channels. We recently welcomed Samsung Galaxy to the program, providing eBay buyers access to exclusive like new products at exceptional prices. Vehicles, parts and accessories has historically been one of the strongest performing categories on eBay and remains so today. Our platform offers a wide inventory selection supported by a robust catalog. The Fitment shopping experience matches car parts to vehicles to help buyers shop efficiently and confidently.

Speaker 1

In Q2, we expanded this capability by enabling a motorcycle parts finder in Germany and the UK. We also expanded the My Garage feature, which allows buyers to store their vehicle data, leading to a more tailored shopping experience to Canada, Italy, France and Spain. We plan to launch more technology driven innovations in this category later this year to further build on our success. Taking a step back, eBay exists to create economic opportunity for all. That purpose guides our approach to our customers, our communities and our team at eBay.

Speaker 1

This year, our leadership team's individual goals focus on accelerating meaningful change in diversity, equity and inclusion throughout every level of our company. We formed an ESG Council composed of senior leaders across the company whose role is to guide and ensure the success sustainability initiatives. During the quarter, we published our 5th annual impact report and 3rd annual diversity, equity and inclusion report detailing the progress we made in the past year as well as outlining our 2025 goals. The full list of activities is extensive, but I would like to share a few highlights. We made progress on our journey to be more diverse, equitable and inclusive.

Speaker 1

Our communities of inclusion have conducted 150 events with more than 10,000 attendees in the past year. We have also continued multi year efforts to ensure gender pay equity, resulting in 100% pay parity in the U. S. And 99.7% globally. Another priority is managing our environmental impact.

Speaker 1

Investing in clean energy is a focus for the company And our goal is to source 100 percent renewable energy by 2025. We have already reached 74% of our goal through a combination of power purchase agreements and local programs. Just last week, we announced that we are teaming up with McDonald's in an agreement with LightSource BP to purchase power from Louisiana's largest solar project. The electricity produced will be greater than the power used at our largest data center. Finally, I would like to call out the incredible generosity of our buyers and sellers.

Speaker 1

During Q2 customers contributed over $35,000,000 to their favorite causes through eBay for charity. This represented 16% growth versus last year and the platform is on track to hit the 2025 goal of raising $600,000,000 These are just a sample of the ongoing ESG related activities and I encourage you to check out more at ebayinc.com. Q2 was another step forward in the multi year transformation of eBay. The business delivered strong results and it's clear that our strategy is working. Customers are delighted with the innovation in our focus categories, leading to volume growth despite tougher comps from a year ago.

Speaker 1

We are harnessing the power of next gen technology to make eBay the seller platform of choice and to attract lifelong enthusiasts. Our payments transition is nearly complete, delivering benefits to sellers, buyers and shareholders. Our advertising product portfolio is expanding, giving sellers more tools to grow their business. And we simplified our portfolio, enabling us to focus on the core while creating significant shareholder value. Our team continues to be relentlessly focused on executing for our customers.

Speaker 1

I'm delighted to welcome 4 new exceptional leaders to our executive team this year. In addition, we have hired critical talent in areas such as technology, AI, analytics and category management. The teams in place are well positioned to propel this business forward. With that, I'll turn the call over to Steve to provide more details on our financial performance. Before I do, I want to say how excited I am to have another world class customer centric leader on our team to help us realize our vision.

Speaker 1

Steve, over to you.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Jamie, and thank you all for joining today. I would like to start by saying how excited and honored I am to be at eBay. I'd also like to thank Andy for his leadership and guidance during my transition into the role. He has done an excellent job creating value for the company and leading our finance team over the last couple of years. I'll start on Page 4 of our presentation.

Speaker 2

We have outlined the impact of moving our Korean business to discontinued operations and our guidance for Q2 earnings. At an aggregated level, this would have reduced guidance by approximately 2 points GMV growth, dollars 400,000,000 of revenue and $0.02 of EPS. The Q2 results purely reflect the performance of our continuing marketplace business. On July 13, we published a Form 8 ks that included recasted historical financial statements back to the start of 2019. These figures provide an apples to apples comparison versus our actual results.

Speaker 2

Excluding Korea, the implied Q2 guidance was between $2,580,000,000 $2,630,000,000 of revenue, growing 8% to 10% on an organic FX neutral basis. Non GAAP EPS was between $0.89 $0.94 per share, representing a decrease of 5% to 10% year over year. Turning to our highlights from the quarter on Slide 5. Despite lapping an exceptional quarter last year, We delivered strong operational results. Revenue grew double digits driven by payments and ads.

Speaker 2

Non GAAP EPS was $0.99 per share and our operating margin was 33%. We generated $910,000,000 of free cash flow, while returning $1,600,000,000 to shareholders through share repurchases and cash dividends. We generated significant value from our portfolio as we work to transform eBay. We announced the agreement to sell over 80 percent of our Korean business to E Mart for approximately $3,000,000,000 We completed the classifieds transaction for total value of $13,300,000,000 including $2,500,000,000 in cash and a 44% stake in Adevinta. We then reached an agreement to sell a quarter of that stake to Premiera for over $2,400,000,000 in cash.

Speaker 2

Finally, we increased our estimated 2021 share buyback to $5,000,000,000 for an initial $2,000,000,000 Moving to active buyers on Slide 6. We exited the quarter with 159,000,000 buyers, representing a 2% decrease year over year on a trailing 12 month basis. At the beginning of the pandemic in Q2 last year, we added more than 7,000,000 buyers, our largest quarterly increase ever. That cohort of buyers has matured in line with historical trends. We are also seeing a reduction in buyers of low priced items due to changes in our marketing As Jamie mentioned, our strategy to attract and retain buyers has changed over the past several quarters.

Speaker 2

We have intentionally focused our marketing and product innovation on high value buyers. These include buyers who sell where buyers who purchase at least 6 days a year and spend over $800 This high value segment represents approximately 20% of our buyer base and they processed around 75% of our GMV. High value buyers grew in Q2, as did the spend per buyer. Low value buyers on eBay make approximately half of our buyer base but only purchase about 5% of our GMV. As we drive this strategy, We expect to see a further drop in active buyers on a rolling 12 month basis, but an increase in GMV per buyer over the coming quarters.

Speaker 2

Moving to Slide 7. In Q2, we delivered $22,100,000,000 of GMV, down 11% year over year. On a spot basis, this represents a decrease of 7% year over year. Compared with Q2 of 2019, GMV grew 19% on an FX neutral basis and 23% on a spot basis. There were several factors that contributed the Q2 GMV dynamic.

Speaker 2

First, we lapped the peak of the early impacts of the pandemic, including the 1st wave of mobility restrictions, stimulus payments and supply chain disruptions. 2nd, there was a meaningful ongoing macro benefit from global mobility, although it was significantly less at the end of quarter than at the beginning of Q2. And 3rd, our underlying business continued to show positive growth from site wide product experience improvement and category performance. In the U. S, we generated approximately $10,000,000,000 of GMV in Q2, down 5% year over year.

Speaker 2

International GMV decreased 16% year over year to $12,100,000,000 Our U. S. Volume outpaced international, primarily due to strength in trading cards as well as benefits from government stimulus earlier in the quarter. Turning to revenue on Slide 8. Our net revenue for the quarter was $2,700,000,000 11% on an FX neutral basis and up 14% on a spot basis.

Speaker 2

We delivered $2,500,000,000 of transaction revenue, up 11% year over year, mainly driven by payments. We continue to make great progress on Sudden migration. As Jamie mentioned, 71% of our Global on platform volume was processed through managed payments during the quarter, which contributed approximately 18 points of incremental revenue growth year over year. The success of the payments ramp also drove quarterly acceleration of 80 basis points to our transaction take rate, which is 11.3 for the quarter. We expect this rate to continue to grow throughout 2021 as we complete the payments rollout.

Speaker 2

We delivered $172,000,000 of marketing services and other revenue, up 11% year over year, driven by strength in shipping programs. While we continue to purposely reduce 3rd party advertising, the drag on total MSNO growth rate was less due to easier comps from a year ago. Turning to Slide 9, our major cost drivers. In Q2, we delivered non GAAP operating margin of approximately 33%. This represents a 6 point year over year decrease, driven primarily by lower volume.

Speaker 2

Cost of revenue has increased in line with payments growth due to processing costs. While these variable costs will increase as payments revenue grows, the incremental revenue provides leverage for our fixed expenses, most notably sales and marketing and G and A. Product development costs increased year over year we continue to invest in product innovation supporting our strategic initiatives. Transaction losses were flat versus the prior year as the benefits of netting seller fees against our net proceeds were offset by higher customer protection losses. Turning to EPS on Slide 10.

Speaker 2

We delivered $0.99 of non GAAP EPS in the 2nd quarter, flat versus the prior year. Negative impacts from lapping COVID driven volumes were offset by strategic initiatives, particularly payments as well as a lower share related to share repurchase. GAAP EPS for the quarter was $0.43 a decrease of 56% year over year. We elected the fair value accounting method for our investments in Adevinta. The change in stock price between the close of the sale On June 24th and the quarter end on June 30th drove a majority of the GAAP EPS decrease.

Speaker 2

In addition, while we recognized further gains on the Adyen launch in Q2, we are lapping significant gains in the prior year. Moving to Slide 11. We saw another strong quarter of cash generation with $910,000,000 of free cash flow. This 7% year over year growth was driven by strong operational results led by payments and improvements in working capital. This was partly offset by higher cash taxes.

Speaker 2

Turning to Slide 12. We ended the quarter with cash and investments of $7,600,000,000 and debt of $9,100,000,000 As I mentioned in my earlier remarks, we completed the sale of the classifieds business to Adderinta during the quarter, generating cash proceeds of $2,500,000,000 We expect to pay cash taxes associated with the sale of approximately 4 100,000,000 in the Q3. As a result of our strong underlying free cash flow performance and the proceeds from this transaction, we updated our capital patient plans for 2021 by increasing the estimated share buyback to $5,000,000,000 In Q2, we returned 1.6 $1,000,000,000 to our shareholders through stock repurchases and dividends. We repurchased approximately 24,000,000 shares an average price of $62.60 per share, amounting to $1,500,000,000 and paid a dividend of $121,000,000 We exited the quarter with $4,200,000,000 of share repurchase authorization remaining. Our Board has approved an additional share repurchase authorization of $3,000,000,000 with no expiry, raising the total to approximately $7,200,000,000 Finally, we issued $2,500,000,000 of senior unsecured notes during the quarter, part of which will be used to repay our 20 22 debt maturities.

Speaker 2

Moving to investments on Slide 13. On June 24, we closed classified sale and recorded an investment on our balance sheet of $10,800,000,000 to reflect the 540,000,000 shares we received The value of this stake stood at $10,400,000,000 at quarter end based on Adeventa's stock price. Between the announcements of the deal last July and the close of the transaction this June, the value of our equity stake appreciated 61%. As a regulatory condition of the classified sale, we agreed to reduce our ownership stake in Ad Events to 33 or less over the 18 months following the close of the deal. We recently announced an agreement with Chimera to sell approximately 135,000,000 shares for more than $2,400,000,000 This will reduce our ownership stake to 33%.

Speaker 2

We expect this transaction to close in the 4th Turning to Adient. The warrants we acquired in the Q2 of 2018 are valued at $1,100,000,000 at the end of the Q2, an increase of over $500,000,000 year over year. You will find more information on the Adient 1 in our 10 Q. We also want to highlight our stake in Kakao Bank. At the end of the second quarter, our investment was worth approximately $300,000,000 On August 6, they completed their IPO, which increased the value of our stake to over $900,000,000 Finally, on June 24, we announced plans to sell over 80% of our Korea business We will retain an interest of less than 20%.

Speaker 2

The implied value of our interest was approximately $800,000,000 at the time of the We remain excited about all these investments, the optionality they provide and the significant value they each generate for our shareholders. Turning to guidance on Slide 14. For Q3, we are projecting revenue between $2,420,000,000 $1,000,000,000 growing 6% to 8% on an organic FX neutral basis and approximately 7% to 9% on a spot basis. We anticipate payments and advertising will continue to drive revenue to grow faster than volume, leading to take rate expansion. This revenue guidance implies GMV is down low to mid teens on an FX neutral basis versus last year and up high single digits compared to 2019.

Speaker 2

On a spot basis, today's rates would indicate a 2 point benefit versus neutral growth rates in Q3. This is 2 points lower than the 4 point benefit we saw in Q2 GMV. We are assuming that macro benefits, including stimulus and mobility, will be significantly less in Q3 than Q2. We also expect that our efforts to improve the business will continue to enable modestly positive underlying growth. We expect non GAAP EPS of $0.86 to $0.90 per share, representing 4% to 9% growth.

Speaker 2

Year over year, we plan to investing in products and technology to deliver better category experiences while improving marketing efficiencies. We are expecting GAAP EPS in the range of $0.64 to $0.68 per share in Q3. Looking at the full year, the macro environment remains dynamic and difficult to predict and we are not providing full year guidance at this time. However, there are variables within our control that we are sharing this context. Given the accelerated pace of the payments transition, we are raising our full year forecast for payments revenue from $1,700,000,000 to $1,800,000,000 Payments margin contribution continues to ramp towards our long term target of 25%.

Speaker 2

Total operating margin for the business is expected to land approximately 33%, which will be close to 150 basis points better than 2019. As I mentioned before, we expect to repurchase shares totaling $5,000,000,000 in 2021 at this time, which implies an additional $3,200,000,000 in the second half. In conclusion, during the quarter, we delivered strong short term results ahead of expectations, while transforming the company for the longer term. We are excited about the path forward and the growth potential of eBay. Innovation is leading to volume growth in our focus categories despite tougher comps from a year ago.

Speaker 2

Our payments and advertising initiatives are driving better customer experience, resulting in incremental revenue and earnings growth. Our balanced approach to cost management allows us to reinvest in our customers while delivering high margins with low capital intensity. We continue to deliver strong free cash flow and return value to our shareholders through stock repurchases and dividends. Our portfolio simplification has created over $20,000,000,000 of shareholder value, allowing us to intensely focus on growing the core. As a purpose driven company, we're enabling economic opportunity for all, while supporting our people, our communities and our planet.

Speaker 2

I would like to once more take this opportunity to thank our teams across eBay for their tremendous work over the last quarter and for their support for our buyers and sellers in the eBay community. We will now take your questions. Operator?

Speaker 3

Your first question is from Tom Champion with Piper Sandler.

Speaker 4

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. Jamie, I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on your buyer strategy. It sounds like we should Maybe that metric is under pressure the next couple of quarters, but what sort of underlies The strategy around focus, around this 20% of The buyer base. And I guess relatedly with the portfolio improvements and streamlining the business, do you does this Enhance your ability to execute more rapidly going forward.

Speaker 4

And maybe just the last one for Steve. We'd love to hear a little bit more about Your thought process and what drove you to the business given it's a little bit different from your prior background? Thanks very much.

Speaker 1

Yes. So first on the buyer strategy, this is something that I laid out last July when we talked about the tech led reimagination is being focused on 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 number of active buyers, even low value buyers or 1 and done buyers. I've got the whole organization pivoted to focusing on those high value Buyers that are buying over $800 buying 6 times a year or buyers who sell. And so as you think about these buyers, They're so strong at EBITDA. 20% of them, they make up 75% of GMV.

Speaker 1

And the goal is, is how do we turn more buyers into these lifelong enthusiasts? I've met a lot of these buyers. They wake up and they get a cup of coffee and they turn to eBay and open the eBay app. And our focus is really not on just the total number, but really focused on how are we driving these buyers become enthusiasts. The metrics that we show in the board deck are trailing 12 month metric.

Speaker 1

So we're obviously lapping the buyers that we acquired in Q2. But going forward, our focus will really be on these long term enthusiasts. I'm excited to say that their GMV is growing, they're growing as a population, and more and more you're going to see us doing things to drive that longevity because we know the things that move buyers up the cohort curves into long term buyers. On your second question on the portfolio, absolutely. A huge part of the portfolio simplification is about being able to focus on the marketplace.

Speaker 1

As Steve talked about, we generated $20,000,000,000 in value for shareholders starting with the StubHub transaction. But I think more importantly now, it enables us to focus all of our attention on the marketplace business. As I've talked about, we see a lot of growth opportunity in that business. The strategy that we Av is working. We're in year 1 of a multiyear reimagination of eBay.

Speaker 1

But if you look at what we talked about a second ago with the 10% now about to reach 20% of categories. It's really working. Customer satisfaction is at 90%. It's leading to very And we see the same potential for this innovation playbook in every category in the site. And Steve, maybe you want

Speaker 2

to take the last one? Yes. Thank you, Jamie, and thank you, Tom, for your question. It's good to meet you this afternoon. I suppose Advise the case between 2 areas.

Speaker 2

I've come from 2 companies which were leaders in an industry around customer centricity and innovation and coming over to eBay, a company that's got a real sense of purpose, an amazing team and a heart of our customer centricity and innovation were some of the core facets that I looked at when I came over to eBay. Since I've been here, it's really clear about the sheer size and scale of the enterprise and what opportunities are ahead of us in terms of its growth. We really do have incredible durability of our financial model with a fortress balance sheet, best in class margins, incredible free cash flow. And even after a few weeks, I sort of feel that The value of the enterprise is really misunderstood because of the potential that's ahead of us and the strategy that Jamie's laid out. So, I'm really excited to be here.

Speaker 2

I think there's huge opportunities for the enterprise, and I'm looking forward to my journey over here in eBay. Thank you, Bowen.

Speaker 3

Your next question is from Steven Yu with Credit Suisse.

Speaker 5

Okay. Thank you so much. So Jamie, I know this question goes back away in terms of what we could be doing once the managed payments is fully deployed, but now we're pretty much at the goal line here. So there has to be pockets of the global demand base you otherwise could not cater to before because you just simply could not take their money. So What are the prospects of opening up the buyer acquisition funnel to that audience a bit more in those regions?

Speaker 5

And I guess And on a second point, recently you've launched a fulfillment service in the UK with a partner. So you talk about what kind of improvement you think you may see to either conversion rates and a better experience as you step up the level of service for the buyers in the country? Thanks.

Speaker 1

Yes. Thanks for the question. On the first one, we're excited that as we get through managed payments, we announced that next quarter will be 90%. That opens up even more opportunities for us from a how do we service our buyers and sellers. So some examples of things that we've already launched, for example, is we launched Partnership with Afterpay as an additional form of payment in Australia, allowing people to in that market to pay with installments.

Speaker 1

It's very strong in Australia and that certainly helped us in Australia business. In our UK business, we've launched a partnership that allows us to do seller financing and to help sellers out there. And we'll continue to expand in different ways throughout the globe on more opportunities around managed payments. The other big one that I talked about earlier is that now that commerce and payments are 1 and we can manage all of that on eBay, there is a lot of friction We can take out of the platform. So unpaid items is a great example where for 25 years since I was here the first time, sellers have had to face items where buyers We've now eliminated that in the 99% of options on our way to do that in best offer and options.

Speaker 1

We've eliminated fixed price on our way to do it in Best Offer and Auctions. 2 weeks ago, we had eBay open with thousands of sellers online and we announced this and it was Massive rejoicing from them because this has been a key pain point. So the other thing I'm excited about is just eliminating those pain points. On your question on the fulfillment service, what we saw in the U. S.

Speaker 1

And especially in our cross border trade coming out of Greater China, for example, is the ability to We're deployed inventory. It is a benefit because of the predictability that it gives to buyers from that standpoint. So We're using it to help scale small businesses to drive the ability to have forward deployment and basically pass those savings on to the customer. So we're just getting started with that program, but we've learned a lot about cross border trade and we're excited that fulfillment service is going help scale some of our small businesses and in their cross border inventory.

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Your next question is Michael McGovern with Bank of America.

Speaker 6

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. 2, if I may. The first just on Promoted Listings. It looked like they were so the Promoted Listings revenues On product change quarter on quarter.

Speaker 6

So there's a bit of a deceleration. I was just wondering if there's anything to call out specifically for that in Q2. And then secondly, looking at the decline in sold items, it looks like the sold items was down by more then GMV was down. And looking back to last year, GMV grew more than sold items Last year. So it doesn't look to be driven by comps.

Speaker 6

So is there anything to call out for the decline in sold items for Q2 as well? Thank you.

Speaker 1

Yes. So on the first one on Promoted Listings, no, that business is doing well. So we grew at 8% in the quarter despite volume being down 11%. And we actually are starting to scale up a couple of pilots that we launched in Q2, Specifically, ads for auctions, what we're calling Pointed Listings Express, which is a CPC business and then an off eBay Advertising business. So, we continue to see lots of potential in that business and these three areas are just getting started.

Speaker 1

On the sold items, that's really a reflection of the purposeful decisions that we've made to, 1, is move away from low value items that weren't driving the type of return in low value buyers specifically as well as a shift to higher ASP in general because of the strategy to focus category strategy working. So we talked about the strength that we're seeing in trading cards and collectibles Already having done $2,000,000,000 this year, the same as all of last year, really driving our C2C business and C2C tends to have a higher ASP or higher average selling price than our B2C business. And so that's also driving kind of that dynamic. So It's actually in line with where we want it to be. We think it's healthy for the ecosystem.

Speaker 1

And we think it's going to continue to be driven that way because C2C, as we look at it, we hope to continue to outpace B2C and lean in on these categories of value, like our luxury goods, collectibles, etcetera.

Speaker 7

Got it. That's great. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Your next question is from Colin Sebastian with Baird.

Speaker 8

Thanks. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome, Steve. I guess, Jamie, first just wanted to follow-up on the buyer strategy. I'm just trying to figure out how we should think about that ultimately translating into marketplace growth.

Speaker 8

And is there going to be, for example, an extended period of decay in those less active users before the marketplace essentially normalizes and then you can show growth? And then secondly, I guess more housekeeping in terms of what was behind the acceleration in the move to managed payment stream in Q2, it seems like you may be about quarter or 2 ahead of plan there, if I have the metrics right? Thank you.

Speaker 1

Yes. So, on your first question on the buyer strategy, Yes. We're purposely moving away from low value buyers or kind of low CLTV, low GMV for buyers. If you remember back to 2019, we talked about that strategy. And because some of these are trailing 12 month metrics, some of those numbers are actually still in our numbers even from 2019.

Speaker 1

But the reason I'm focused on is, if you look at those 50% of buyers, they only contribute 5% of GMV and the top 20% contribute 75%. And so by focusing the organization, not on just how many buyers do we have on the platform, but how many of our buyers are returning into these high value buyers, We think that's much healthier for the growth of the platform in the long term, much healthier for sellers, etcetera, jives better with the marketing strategy that we're going after. We're really focused on the 1st 90 days of a customer and getting them up their lifecycle. So this is going to be a purposeful strategy you're going to see us on for years walking away from The work that we did back in 2019. When you ask about the managed payments, what I'm really happy about is the execution from the team.

Speaker 1

If you look at when we started, for example, enabling Greater China, we got to 90% penetration within 10 weeks. And so we took the learnings from what started 2 years ago with the U. S. And Germany, and we've learned a lot as we've rolled out all the other countries. And that That pace speaks to the pace of execution of the team and what they're doing.

Speaker 1

I know there are a lot of questions of would we be able to even reach the targets we had For next year, originally. And I'm just excited that we're ahead of schedule and we're starting to do things like the Afterpay and the seller financing because there's just a lot of potential for this business as we fully manage the payments by all through eBay.

Speaker 8

Okay. Thanks, Jamie.

Speaker 3

Your next question is from Edward Yruma with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Speaker 6

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the part. Thanks for taking our questions. But I guess first, you guys have made a big push into authentication as part of your focus on some of these vertical Enthusiast Communities. And I know or we believe that a lot of this is done on an outsourced basis.

Speaker 6

I guess at some point, do you need to bring this in house and kind of how scalable are your Authentication Solutions. And then kind of broadly speaking, it seems like you guys have been fairly innovative with adding more functionality to eBay stores. What is the uptake been of the subscription product and kind of what does the product roadmap look like from here? Thanks.

Speaker 1

Yes. So, first on your question on authentication, look, we're really excited at how we've been able to scale this program. We've now authenticated 1,000,000 items on the We've expanded that authentication for sneakers to UK, Australia and Canada. This quarter, we announced that we're Handbags over $500 in the U. S.

Speaker 1

And we're using a mixture of third party and in house resources to do so. But what we're seeing is that this authentication has a great ROI. What it's able to do in terms of driving GMV, Driving new buyers into the site. I'll just give you I'll reiterate the stat we talked about last quarter in sneakers, which is acquiring a Gen Z, they buy $500 in sneakers, but they buy $2,000 in other categories on the site. We're seeing the same thing in watches where Luxury watch buyer is buying $8,000 in categories outside of watches and that's over 50 items.

Speaker 1

And that's one of the benefits of eBay is that cross Category shopping nature and that's really hard for other competitors to replicate. On eBay stores, we talked about being the seller platform Choice and a big part of that is our strategy of really growing eBay stores. So this quarter, we announced a new program where it's much Simpler to set up your eBay store. And I'm really excited by one of the features the team announced, which was the ability for a seller to send coupons to repeat buyers. So, this is something that sellers have been asking for.

Speaker 1

We built it in as part of the store's platform. And in just a few short months Since it launched, that product already has 1,000,000 buyers taking advantage of those coupons from sellers. So Another thing that as we had our big eBay open event 2 weeks ago, our sellers were really excited by. And frankly, we're just getting started on that program. So we're even continuing to make

Speaker 7

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Your next question is from Ross Sandler with Barclays.

Speaker 9

Hey, guys. Two questions on the model here. So you've got about a 10 point easier comp for GMV On an ex FX basis in the Q3 and you're calling for a little bit more decel from here. So do we chalk that up to kind of Purging some of the low quality buyers in that chunk of that 25% of GMV that they represent or is that just a macro is kind of dropping off? Any color on that would Great.

Speaker 9

And then your 33% operating margin for 2021, that's got the brunt of all the payment ramp in there. So As we kind of look ahead to 'twenty two and we expect GMV to start growing again, how should we think about that operating margin? Like what are the puts and takes on that Going up or going down next year? Thanks a lot.

Speaker 2

Hi, Ross. Steve here. I'll pick those up. So I'll start off with the Q2. And as we laid everything out on an On an apples basis, we've obviously exceeded our expectations across all of the major metrics.

Speaker 2

We laid out our 3rd quarter guidance, obviously, that reflects the best view based on what we're seeing in our most recent trends in the 1st part of the quarter and our latest outlook on mobility. This is actually an unchanged view versus what we communicated when we guided on the second quarter. And what we indicated was that we as sort of mobility got back to normal. And we are seeing some of that in particular a couple of our key markets in the likes of Germany and the U. K.

Speaker 2

So that underpins that. And again, we sort of when we look Through that lens, we expect that to lead to a mid lowtomid teen volume declines year over year, which actually at the heart of it indicates modestly positive growth from the underlying business on the basis of us continuing to improve the customer Experience and execute on the vision that Jamie has laid out. Specifically with regards to your second question about the 33 Percent operating margin for 2021. Obviously, we're ramping payments up. We talked extensively about the fact that that's actually a lower margin part of the business, sort of 25%.

Speaker 2

We've guided our expectations that 2021 will end with that 33%. With our recast financials, that is 150 basis stronger than 2019. So We're right on track. We're seeing margin accretion from all of the initiatives that we're driving forward. We're not guiding 2022 at this point, I'll invite plays with the trajectory that we're sitting on.

Speaker 3

Your next question is from Richard Kramer Mehr with Arete Research.

Speaker 7

Thanks very much. Jamie, first

Speaker 5

of all, you spoke about

Speaker 7

being the platform of choice for sellers, But you've also hit a record transaction take rate of 11.3% and you're suggesting that a rise year on year. What's your message to sellers With the notion that what they're seeing in terms of their costs on eBay continue to go up as there's been a lot of Issues and glitches with working on final value fees and tax and so forth. And then a couple of quick questions for Steve. Can you give us a bit more detail on the decline in gross Margins, you mentioned payments and authentication. And also adjusting for the fair value of both warrants and equity and And the investments, it looks like free cash flow would have been about a third lower.

Speaker 7

So can you talk about what you're seeing in the underlying free cash flow of the business when we remove all these Very noisy investment income and changes in fair value warrants. Thanks.

Speaker 1

Yes. On your first question, I think what It's important there is to think about the fact that there used to be a separate take rate associated with payments and now what our sellers are seeing is a blended take rate. And in general, The vast majority of sellers will actually be paying lower fees when you look at the combined take rate that they pay because they're no longer paying that separate piece And it's one single rate. The reason you're still seeing a rise in take rate and may continue to do so is just because of the ramp of payments. So as payments ramps up, That starts to get reflected in Ebay's take rate, but the seller is no longer paying that PayPal or other form of Payment take rate.

Speaker 1

The second key thing for us is making sure that we return the value to the sellers for the fees that we're charging. And so, when you think about the scale demand that we can bring in terms of 159,000,000 buyers, in terms of new capabilities that we're bringing to them on the Like the ability to go back to repeat sellers, there are areas where we've discounted our fees like in Sneakers, which has worked out really well in terms of growing those categories. We look in general at the value that we provide. And I would say in our core business, We actually feel really good about that. And what we're seeing in our advertising business is that the ROAS or the return on ad spend that our sellers are seeing is actually higher than what they're getting on other platforms, which also I think speaks to the value of the demand that we're providing.

Speaker 1

I'll let Steve take the other questions.

Speaker 2

Hi, Richard. Good to meet you remotely. I'll cover off the first question with regard to margins. So, I think about the 3 key areas. There's the underlying business, there's payments and then there's the likes of authentication.

Speaker 2

And so, as a reminder, we laid out The strategy around payments a couple of years ago with regards to $2,000,000,000 of incremental revenue, dollars 500,000,000 of Incremental op margin and as Jamie alluded to, that is going very well. The momentum is going well. We've increased the forecast for 2021 to 1.8 $1,000,000,000 on the revenue side. And as I said earlier, we are continuing to be on the path for the incremental 150 basis points over 2 years on our margin story. So it's not necessarily driving any dilution in the margin It's great from a net income standpoint as we go forward.

Speaker 2

The second point on authentication, Jamie mentioned the return on investment that I was providing. It's rather de minimis when you look at the overall cost structure in terms of, in fact, less than half a point of margin That is where you go from authentication, but the amount of stickiness that is providing for our customers when they go into cross category buying more than page itself and it's an investment that we're really glad we're making as we think about the whole ecosystem and then the ability for that to move across categories. With regard to our free cash flow, at an underlying level, we generated free cash flow of $910,000,000 in the quarter. The warrants are not achieved yet and the free cash flow is investments. What I would say is that we continue to invest in product as part of our core platform, a, in terms of the payments rollout, which is going extremely well, and other product investments with regards to moving the site forward in the categories that Jamie alluded to earlier.

Speaker 2

So we're doing very well in terms of the organization and how we're moving forward and Very happy to follow-up offline if there's any further questions.

Speaker 3

Your next question is from Deepak Mathivanan with Wolfe Research.

Speaker 10

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. To start off, just to follow-up on Ross' question, low to mid teens GMV decline in 3Q, anyway you can sort of give Color on mobility assumptions behind that, should we expect some incremental deceleration in 4Q or is 3Q sort of a reflection of all potential reversals due to mobility?

Speaker 1

I mean, I realize that it's

Speaker 10

hard to forecast COVID dynamics, but want to understand your guidance assumptions. And then second one, you Some of your Ataventa stake, how should we think about the approach with the rest? Is there any specific cadence or time line that you have in mind? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Good afternoon, Deepak. So, I'll address the first question as you laid out in terms of mobility. We have, as I said in my prepared comments, Assume that we start to ramp off the significant lockdowns coming from 2020 through 'twenty one, we talked about the fact The mobility in terms of people getting out and about would increase as we went through the Q2. And so as we get into the 3rd, then that's rolling off. In fact, if you look at particularly Germany, one of our biggest markets in the UK, things are pretty much back to normal from a mobility Travel is going through the roof.

Speaker 2

If you look at search in terms of leisure activities and travel, I think that's going forward. Obviously, it feels a little different maybe over here at the moment with regards to the Delta variant, but in essence, when we're seeing things, we're expecting that going I'm not going to get beyond quarter 3, Deepak, in all seriousness because we chose not to guide further than that because of the uncertainty, But we are assuming in the Q3 that things are sort of starting to get back to some sort of normality and we're not in this sort of a lockdown scenario. With regards to the Adevinta transaction, obviously, that was completed. When we think about ASEAN and Korea, whilst we have agreed those transactions, they're not closed yet. And obviously, therefore, we're not getting into any discussions about the proceeds associated with those transactions until those are closed.

Speaker 2

So Obviously, leaning into the Adeventa, very pleased that we were able to increase the share buyback from $2,000,000,000 to $5,000,000,000 this year in terms of driving those returns for shareholders. But it's too early to say with regard to the other transactions that are not closed yet.

Operator

Operator, I think we'll take one more, please.

Speaker 3

Your final question is from Dan Solomon with BMO Capital Markets.

Speaker 6

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Jamie, could you come back and review the rollout of Promoted Listings Express and CPC pricing? What are your key goals there? Is it to grow the advertiser base, deeper spend per advertiser and bring more of your sellers and more deeply to the program? I think more And maybe an appropriate last comment for the call, you've mentioned the eBay Open seller forum a couple of times here and some of the pieces of feedback that you got.

Speaker 6

What would you say were the 2 to 3 most important that you heard from the sellers in that event?

Speaker 1

Yes. So, first on the Promoted Listings, yes, the rollout of CBC is really to have additional ad formats and additional capabilities for sellers to drive visibility of their listings. So we talked last quarter about how we're only at 1% of GMV. And if you look at Other platforms, we think there's significant potential in the kind of low to mid single digit percentage of GMV. The backs of the existing program where we've already done over $1,000,000,000 grew 8% this quarter.

Speaker 1

We're really on a single type of advertising in a single format. So it was all CPA on fixed price. So as we expand now to auctions, as we expand to a CPC where we introduce More bidding capabilities for our top spot and search, that just enables sellers to have more tools. So we're in beta on that product right now. And I would just say, in general, we're really excited by what we're seeing because our ROAS is really strong, meaning our buyer experience is performing well And the return that the sellers are getting on that spend is productive and much more productive than they would get on other platforms.

Speaker 1

In terms of eBay Open, I think we had a lot of really positive feedback about the unpaid item noise. I've known sellers forever get frustrated When that happens to them, especially for a new seller, and so they're really excited that we're tackling that as part of managed payments. I'd say they're really excited by what we're doing Stores and coupons because they want to build their brand on eBay. They want to drive retail business. And so I think they're really did buy that.

Speaker 1

I'd say the other forum that was really well attended and had a lot of excitement was the trading cards forum. The launch of computer vision where we're driving 80% of the scans are really identifying what the product is and it's simplifying the listing flow. We launched this new My Collections, which is a really popular feature for people because they can show off their collections. And we launched a price guide feature, which eBay has this Treasure trove of data in the 25 years of history. Nobody has the data that we have.

Speaker 1

It's a really great asset for us. So, I'd say that area And those sellers that joined in particular were really excited by the innovation that we're making. I love those forums because This platform gets better by listening to our sellers and hearing their feedback and they give us lots of ideas of things to continue to work on in the tech led reimagination. So a great interaction. Despite being virtual, they all can't wait to be in person again like we can, but it was a really good session.

Speaker 6

Thanks Jamie.

Speaker 3

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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