eBay Q2 2025 Earnings: GMV Up But Inflation, Discounts & Shipping May Be Doing The Heavy Lifting

Liz Morton

Published: Jul 30 2025 Updated: Aug 4 2025

eBay has released Q2 2025 results, with Revenue and GMV beating analysts' expectations in first quarter with a new Chief Financial Officer onboard.

Important stats from the press release:

Revenue of $2.7 billion, up 6% on an as-reported basis and up 4% on an FX-Neutral basis

Gross Merchandise Volume ("GMV") of $19.5 billion, up 6% on an as-reported basis and up 4% on an FX-Neutral basis

Total advertising offerings generated $482 million of revenue in the second quarter, representing 2.5% of GMV. First-party advertising products on the eBay platform delivered $455 million of revenue in the second quarter, up 19% on an as-reported basis and up 17% on a foreign exchange ("FX") neutral basis

Returned $759 million to stockholders in Q2, including $625 million of share repurchases and $134 million paid in cash dividends

Total Active Buyers were reported at 134 Million, which represents minor year over year growth of 1% and flat when compared to last quarter.

However, CEO Jamie Iannone once again had to resort to legacy discounting tactics (which he had previously criticized his predecessor Devin Wenig for using), offering significant sales events and coupons throughout the quarter to achieve that not exactly impressive result.

It's also important to note that despite the minor year over year growth, this is now the 13th consecutive quarter where eBay had less Active Buyers than in Q1 2018.

Note: eBay changed the definition of GMV and Active Buyers at the end of 2021 and restated both figures going back to 2018 (chart reflects restated figures per eBay's amended reports.)

Once again, eBay declined to provide specific Active Seller figures, which were last reported at 17 Million in Q4 2021,

"Enthusiast Buyers" - those with at least 6 purchase days, at least $800 spent in the last 12 months and/or buyers who also sell - are still stuck at 16M, which is where they've been since Q4 2022, again despite eBay engaging in significant discounting aimed specifically at trying to goose this stat.

And that GMV growth doesn't look so impressive when you realize $19.5B is about where eBay's restated GMV was in Q4 2018.

eBay defines Gross Merchandise Volume as "the total value of all paid transactions between users on our Marketplace platforms during the applicable period inclusive of shipping fees and taxes."

That means when shipping prices and tariffs/taxes go up, eBay gets an automatic GMV bump without actually having to increase sales on the platform.

That inflationary effect doesn't just impact cross border sales being directly shipped to end users - US sellers who import whole goods or supplies/materials for items they make are also feeling the pinch and baking those extra costs into product pricing.

And the same goes for Average Order Value (AOV), which Iannone said is up this quarter as well - how much of that was actually due to eBay doing anything to improve results versus inflationary factors outside of eBay's control they are simply taking credit for?

Not to mention the fact that eBay has been using multiple discount and coupon offers that use tiered structures and other tricks specifically designed to increase AOV.

GMV and Average Order Value was also helped by the introduction of new Buy Now Pay Later options from Klarna - and again, tiered discount offers designed to incentivize buyers to use BNPL on higher ticket items.

What would actual GMV look like without outside inflationary help and lazy, legacy discounting? Who knows, because eBay certainly isn't going to tell us.

eBay also reported two significant expenses this quarter, with $55 Million marked for executive bonuses and restructuring and $52 Million for legal matters.

The bonuses and restructuring are likely tied to severances paid to now ex-CFO Steve Priest and CPO Eddie Garcia, as well as severance and benefits packages negotiated for over 200 unionized workers at TCGPlayer who were laid off after eBay announced plans to move authentication operations to Kentucky.

The legal expenditure is not so clear, but may possibly be related to expenses incurred with anti-union law firm Littler Mendelson helping eBay to drag out bargaining with TCGUnion members over the last 2 years or hiring heavy hitters from Sullivan and Cromwell to defend eBay in the EPA case which wrapped up in eBay's favor in April after the Department of Justice dropped their appeal.

Promoted Listings Ads

eBay reported total advertising revenue of $482 Million in Q2, representing 2.5% of GMV.

First-party ads (all of the various cost per click, cost per sale, Store and Offsite Promoted Listings products) delivered $455 Million in revenue, up 19% on an as-reported basis while eBay continues to intentionally reduce third-party ads which brought in only $8 Million in revenue.

eBay also made a change in Q1 to the Ad Revenue chart, adding a new metric for "Off-Platform Ads" which is advertising revenue from eBay’s off-platform businesses - importantly that does not refer to Off Site promoted listings ads, instead (according to ex-CFO Steve Priest) it is tracking advertising revenue from eBay's other businesses like TCGPlayer and their Qoo10 marketplace in Japan.

Promoted Listings General made the largest contribution to total ad revenue - which is no surprise to anyone, given the massive money grab attribution changes that rolled out to Germany in February and UK, Australia, France, Italy, and Spain in late June that allow eBay to charge ad fees on sales where the eventual buyer may not have even actually seen the ad!

Neither Iannone nor new CFO Peggy Alford addressed last month's Promoted Listings fee back charging snafu which resulted in sellers being charged for ad fees that eBay had previously failed to "attribute" correctly, ostensibly due to a "technical issue."

There were many reports from sellers saying they were being charged ad fees on orders that went as far back as January 2025, but since they weren't actually charged until June, it's likely eBay counted those charges as Q2 ad revenue.

eBay did not disclose the total scope of the delayed charges, let alone how much Q1 ad revenue was effectively pulled forward into Q2 as a result of this "technical issue", further muddying the water on these results.

Iannone did not hint at whether the new attribution model will be expanding to the US market, but recent updates to policy pages, suggest it may be coming soon.

Tariffs

eBay continues to focus on the "good news" that the current tariff situation has had minimal impact on business from sellers in China, noting that most of this inventory is forward deployed and/or using eBay's Speedpak service.

But that glosses over the fact that the tariffs are based on the Country of Origin/Manufacture of items, not the ship from location, which means they can be disruptive for sellers in any location outside the US that may be selling goods Made in China or even those who don't know or haven't provided CoO information for their listings.

And just hours before this earnings call, President Trump signed an executive order moving the suspension of the de minimis exemption for goods made in all countries outside the US up to August 29, 2025 - which could throw the entire ecommerce industry into further turmoil.

AI, Focus Verticals & eBay Live

A full 3 years after initially launching eBay Live (yes, it really was all the way back in June 2022), Iannone seems finally ready to start trying to seriously enter the livestream selling market, though inexplicably he insists it's still in its "early" growth phase with a few new features being added and a livestream shopping tour recently kicked off.

He also inexplicably continues to insist that they just "formally" launched eBay Live in the UK in May 2025, despite the fact that eBay's own press release from April 2024 and archived versions of the eBay.co.uk Live page show they have been actively hosting live shows in that market for over a year.

At this point it's simply a blatant lie that Iannone continues to put forward, hoping no one will call him out on it, and while it may seem like a small detail, it begs the question - where else might eBay be playing fast and loose with the truth about their financial and operational performance?

And while we're on the subject of questions that someone should ask on the next earnings call, maybe it's time to address the fact that Walmart has clearly been engaging in strategic poaching of eBay leaders in collectibles, motors, luxury handbags and more to fuel their increasingly successful gambit to take market share in these critical focus verticals over the last year.

Despite that growing challenge, eBay continues to see strong growth in trading cards and Iannone says the bulk AI listing tool has been a key driver for getting more of this inventory on the platform - of course he didn't mention that's only when it actually works.

As for the individual item AI Magical Listing experience, after an agonizingly slow year and a half limited rollout, sellers are still saying it doesn't live up to the hype - like many of eBay's other recent initiatives.

UK C2C Initiatives, Buyer Fees & Simple Delivery

Neither Iannone nor Alford gave much in the way of specific detail on UK consumer to consumer (C2C) initiatives except to say that GMV in the market was up even after introducing Buyer Fees in Q1 and that as far they're concerned, everything is going just fine with Simple Delivery.

That rosey picture doesn't exactly match what many users are experiencing when it comes to Simple Delivery and it's hard to imagine why eBay would have recently chosen to reduce the Buyer Protection Fee in a way that specifically favors lower value (under £20) items if they had not seen a negative impact on sales at least in some price ranges as a result of the initial introduction of the fee.

Final Thoughts

After last quarter's executive shakeup, eBay's new CFO Peggy Alford says the company will focus on operational excellence and reinvesting at least some portion of top line upside into strategic initiatives for the platform, but declined to give much detail about where and how that investment will actually be made.

What she did say is: "we forecast revenue growth modestly higher than GMV for the full year on an FX-neutral basis driven by advertising, shipping, and financial services" - which means eBay will continue to look to seller pockets for revenue growth for the foreseeable future.

Analysts and investors were clearly happy with this report as the stock price jumped ~10% in after hours trading, but time will tell if that GMV number reflects actual improvements and sustainable growth for the platform or is simply propped up by transitory inflation, add tariff costs, lazy discounting tactics, and ever increasing shipping rates.

eBay Earnings News

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Liz Morton is a 17 year ecommerce pro turned indie investigative journalist providing ad-free deep dives on eBay, Amazon, Etsy & more, championing sellers & advocating for corporate accountability.