Though eBay has been pushed aside in the ecommerce industry by online retailers like Amazon, the company is working toward a transformation. Currently, eBay is setting its sights on becoming the most powerful selling platform on the internet by adding new brands and products to its offerings. Insights from expert financial firm Stifel suggest that eBay is poised to make a big return to ecommerce.
Stifel has offered a lot of smart commentary and made a lot of successful, astute decisions in the past, like appointing Silicon Valley investor Thomas Weisel to its board. The company is providing key insights into eBay’s transformation, which is now at the halfway point in an 18-24-month turnover.
Stifel says that eBay hopes to become the best choice for consumers in the ecommerce world. By focusing on managing inventory more efficiently through a structured data initiative, eBay may be able to provide a more seamless shopping experience. The older eBay was often bogged down by technical errors and a bumpy platform, but these issues may be a thing of the past once the company completes its makeover.
Analysts think eBay’s new marketing will be strongly focused on millennials, the cogs that make the wheel of ecommerce turn. Most of the people using eBay fall into this age category. eBay will concentrate on video to make it a competitor with services like Hulu and YouTube, and the company is now active across sixteen different social channels, including even Facebook Messenger. Furthermore, eBay has introduced new seasonal promotions over the past several months.
“eBay relies on sellers to be its logistics platform. The company has worked with sellers to reduce delivery times. When items are shipped using eBay’s shipping label platform, sellers save 15-20 percent off retail rates, get credit for being part of the standard system, and gain access to better tracking data,” says Stifel.
If eBay’s transformation works, consumers will have a new favorite ecommerce platform that could hurt even Amazon. But if the transformation fails, eBay could go the way of Yahoo—cut into pieces and sold as quickly as possible. However, if eBay plays into the millennial generation and focuses on the site’s ease of use and helps people find great deals on items they want, 2017 could be the year the auction site takes over ecommerce.
