eBay Stocks Low But Keeping Upbeat Forcast

With eBay’s stock price down over 50 percent in the last 20 months, with fees and seller defections rising and sell-through rates and prices realized down, with a perceived company arrogance and indifference to user problems, an increasingly heard call from eBay sellers is, “Bring us the head of Meg Whitman” and the rest of top management. Does this signal the beginning of the end for the Internet’s most dynamic success story?

Not yet.

It appears that eBay is going to weather the storm, if management continues to be flexible and makes an effort to address user issues. In fact, Bob Peck, an analyst at Bear Stearns who delivered the keynote speech at last week’s PESA (Professional eBay Sellers Alliance), reports: “We think eBay is listening more. We think eBay has opened up more to the community and is taking their suggestion more to heart. Our net takeaway from our meetings is positive.”

Additionally, in what appears to be good news for eBay sellers using Google Base, the search giant announced at PESA that it will launch an exclusive product search for Base items for the holiday season. An additional search box will show up where shoppers can refine their search. Results from that will appear on a second page showing merchandise from Google Base, ranked by product attributes and relevancy.

But the upbeat forecast is not without warning. “We caution that we do see longer term issues for eBay,” wrote Peck in his report, “should it not address the concerns of the community shortly. However, we believe that management is embracing the community’s ideas more than ever. The rest will be up to execution.” (Peck could not be reached this morning for further comment.)

eBay: Down But Not Out