Coronavirus Has Given eBay A New Shot At Being More Relevant. Can It Deliver?

Coronavirus has spelled the bankruptcies and even the end for many struggling companies, but it’s given a new window of opportunity for eBay in its continued fight against larger rival Amazon. 

 Second-quarter gross merchandise value, or GMV, sold on eBay platforms worldwide rose 29% to $27.1 billion, the San Jose, California company said late Tuesday. The growth rate, the best eBay has seen in 15 years, followed at least five quarters of either flat or declining rates. In the U.S., GMV surged 35% last quarter after at least five straight decreases. 

Active buyers rose 5%, or 8 million, to 182 million. That increase was more than what eBay was able to add in more than the last six quarters combined, eBay’s newly- minted CEO Jamie Iannone said on a conference call. Iannone, a former company executive who re-joined as CEO in April, most recently served as Walmart eCommerce’s chief operating officer. He had also served as CEO of SamsClub.com, the online arm of Walmart’s wholesale membership club.

“Consumer behavior is rapidly evolving, and this dynamic has been accelerated by COVID-19,” Iannone said. “In the past few years, we have not executed to our full potential. New competitors have taken share because we neglected our core area of expertise….We did not adapt quickly enough to the rapidly-changing needs of our customers…. The current strength in demand creates a significant opportunity for us.”

Those new competitors include his former employer Walmart. Walmart, benefiting from its physical store fleet that helps process increased online grocery orders for curbside pickup or delivery, is expected to beat eBay to become the No. 2 online U.S. seller this year with a 5% share of the market, outpacing eBay’s 4%, Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak estimated in a report this month. 

Amazon’s share of the U.S. online e-commerce market, meanwhile, would rise to 37% by next year, up from 34.5% this year, Nowak projected. 

Iannone said “a tech-led reimagination of eBay” will be key to helping make eBay “the best global marketplace.” The company is simplifying the listing flow for consumers selling on its site as well as making the registration and on-boarding process easier for small-business marketplace sellers. It said it’s started to offer sellers “real-time competitive pricing and traffic data.”

To attract more Gen Z customers, in June it released the Dark Mode feature that enables a dark screen background in its mobile app. The company said that was the most requested feature by customers, especially the younger demographic.

“A key focus for us over the next couple of years will be our Gen Y customers,” he said. 

Under pressure from activist investors to focus on its core online marketplace business, eBay, former parent of PayPal before spinning it off in 2015, in February also sold its ticket-sale business StubHub. This month it agreed to transfer its online Classifieds business to Norway-listed Adevinta, a global online classified ads specialist, for about $9.2 billion. 

eBay also had unveiled marketing campaigns in recent years to show consumers it’s far more than the online auction site it was long identified with.

eBay shares, after falling to a low of $26 in late March, have more than doubled to close at $56 on Tuesday.

However, the Covid-19 tailwind aside, the proof is still in the pudding whether eBay can keep the shoppers it’s attracted during the pandemic and stem more market share loss, especially as its rivals led by Amazon aren’t standing still.

In a cautionary sign, in Germany and Italy where economies have begun to reopen, the growth rate of total amount of merchandise bought on eBay’s platform has slowed despite the pace still being higher than pre-Covid levels. 

Related on Forbes: Google Just Upped Its Ecommerce-Game. It’s Not Enough To Compete With Amazon 

Related on Forbes: Best Buy sales rebound after stores reopen, another sign coronavirus won’t kill brick-and-mortar retail