EBay posts 3.1% jump in revenue over the holiday period
EBay is celebrating a bumper Christmas haul after it reported a 3.1% rise in revenues for the all-important holiday period as shoppers headed online in record numbers.
The financial performance cheered investors who welcomed the figures as evidence that the online auction house is successfully revitalizing itself as an online retailer.
As such, eBay has been pushing fixed price sales of brand new goods as well as limiting sellers to a single landing page for their goods. The retailer has also trialled the real-time shopping format to tempt TV viewers to reach for their purses and wallets.
Whilst traditional bricks and mortar retailers such as Macy’s suffered over the period, eBay saw both its quarterly profit and revenue rise, with the latter exceeding analyst expectations of $9.36bn to hit $9.5bn.
Not all is rosy in the eBay garden however with a forecast adjusted first quarter profit of 46-48 cents per share falling below estimates of 50 cents per share.
Overall eBay’s marketplace sales expanded by 4% in the fourth quarter, below the rate of growth across online retail as a whole.