eBay beats Q2 earnings and revenue expectations despite slowing growth

Yahoo Finance Live anchors discuss second-quarter earnings for eBay.

Video transcript

- Let's talk about eBay, OK?

- [MUMBLES] OK.

- This is better.

- OK.

- Just a little better, right?

- OK, if you want to say that.

- Oh, well, the stock it was up, but now it's not doing anything.

- OK, guys.

- It did beat estimates, though, in terms of the top and the bottom line for eBay here. So we did see a better reaction from it a little bit earlier on. The company also, by the way, is raising the lower end of its full-year forecast. So I guess that's not super exciting but a little bit better here, and the company's revenue forecast for this current quarter and its earnings per share forecast is sort of in line with analysts-- what analysts have been expecting earnings per share did beat last quarter.

I mean, this is one of those companies where it had been an outperformer for a long time then had a sort of dip here. And the dippy do as Brads--

- As Brads would say.

- --would call it.

- Yes.

- And now it's just sort of they're. I don't know--

- I can say it's unlike Clorox, at least eBay seems to understand it is a slower growth entity, and it is actually forecasting its results somewhat OK. Now, are the results great? Well, no. This is more, I think, what we've come to know and expect from an eBay.

You saw just slowing growth across the board. You saw margins, gross margins down about 400 basis points year over year. So not a great quarter. Another e-commerce company slowing-- showing slower growth just like an Etsy, you name it Wayfair they're all about to come.

- I mean, this is a very different kind of pandemic hangover where you saw a lot of people go online and buy things during the pandemic. That is now shifting. Gross merchandise volume down 18% to about 18 and one half billion. That was still a little bit better than estimated.

What also struck out-- stood out to me active buyers on the platform. The number of active buyers at 138 million, which is below estimates. So fewer people than estimated buying stuff, they're buying less stuff, I guess it's all about managing expectations now from here on out for a company like eBay.

- Yeah, and I didn't hear anything from eBay about cutting hiring or slowing hiring. That is the buzzword at the moment right now in techland. It's almost as if you're not firing people, you're not going to get rewarded by the stock market. It's just a terrible thing to even be saying, but those seem-- that seems to be what the market is rewarding. Companies that are coming here and are cutting very, very high-paid employees.

- Yeah. I guess that is what's happening.