eBay Q3 2025 Earnings: GMV Growth Overshadowed By Uncertain Long-Term Trends & Weak Q4 Outlook

Liz Morton

Published: Oct 29 2025 Updated: Nov 10 2025

eBay's Q3 2025 earnings showed impressive GMV growth but questions about long-term trends and a weaker than expected outlook for Q4 holiday shopping drag share price down.

Important stats from the press release:

Revenue of $2.8 billion, up 9% on an as-reported basis and up 8% on an FX-Neutral basis

Gross Merchandise Volume ("GMV") of $20.1 billion, up 10% on an as-reported basis and up 8% on an FX-Neutral basis

Advertising revenue – The company's total advertising offerings generated $525 million of revenue in the third quarter of 2025, representing 2.6% of GMV.

First-party advertising products on the eBay platform delivered $496 million of revenue in the third quarter of 2025, up 25% on an as-reported basis and up 23% on an FX-Neutral basis.

Capital returns – The company repurchased $625 million of its common stock, or approximately 7 million shares, in the third quarter of 2025.

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 continues resorting 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 14th 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.

Jamie attempted to spin the now almost 3 year stall in Enthusiast Buyers as a positive by pointing out they haven't seen "churn" in this cohort.

...what we also see is despite the fact we're in a challenging macro environment... we really don't see our enthusiast buyers churn on the marketplace.

That just means the number hasn't gone down - which isn't exactly something to write home about.

On GMV growth - 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."

Since eBay GMV counts the total amount of the transaction paid through the platform, that means it includes tariffs and duties for sales where those costs are included and paid by the buyer at checkout rather than paid separately after the purchase through the carrier or at time of delivery.

For example, eBay's Global Shipping Programme in the UK displays prices to buyers which are inclusive of tariffs and fees - which caused GSP prices to the US to skyrocket earlier this year, leading eBay to temporarily pause the service starting in May while they made technical adjust to account for new tariff rules.

eBay re-enabled GSP service from UK to US in mid-July with the higher costs for tariffs built in and once de minimis ended in August, many items which previously would have been exempt from duties started having them applied - all of which would have been counted in Q3 GMV.

Those higher costs may have been somewhat balanced out by US buyers not ordering as much from overseas, but it still illustrates the point of how GMV can be inflated and muddied by external factors and will be important to keep in mind for Q4 and beyond as eBay introduces eBay International Shipping to sellers in Canada.

And the same goes for domestic shipments as well - when shipping carriers increase their rates, add new surcharges for imports, or change the way they calculate dimensional weight, eBay gets a GMV boost without having to do anything to actually grow sales on the platform.

eBay Live & Focus Verticals

Beyond potential inflation from shipping and tariffs, much of the reported GMV growth is happening in a few key "focus categories" with trading cards, and specifically Pokemon, being one of the largest contributors.

That may be good news for this earnings report, but analysts raised questions about the long-term sustainability of those trends and sellers outside of these categories tell a much different story about what they're seeing for current sales trends.

The trading cards and collectibles category has also been getting a bump from eBay finally getting serious about livestream selling and that may start to slowly boost other categories in Q4 and beyond with recent expansion of eBay Live to including Hard Goods, Healthy and Beauty, and Art and Antiques.

CFO Peggy Alford also noted that as commodity prices have risen in recent months, eBay has seen a significant increase in demand for bullion and collectible coins, which may be a less durable GMV trend.

Iannone wisely chose not to repeat the ridiculous claims he's been making to media about never having any counterfeits pass through eBay's authentication centers - and disappointingly, no one broached the topic in the Q&A.

He also leaned into eBay's acquisition of Norwegian second-hand marketplace Tise, which is expected to help the company bring social experiences to their consumer to consumer segment to draw in more Gen Z buyers.

And it wouldn't be a 2025 earnings call without a dizzying number of mentions of AI including AI in eBay messaging, an in app agentic experience Iannone has been hyping since May which is still in a very limited beta test that most users haven't actually seen in the wild, Apple Intelligence filling in image recognition gaps, and Magical Listing - which still doesn't deliver on the "just take a picture" promise after almost 2 years in development.

Iannone also deftly ducked one analyst's general question about how eBay is thinking about agentic AI partnerships, avoiding any mention of if/when eBay might catch up to competitors like Etsy, Shopify, and Walmart who have all inked deals with OpenAI to leverage Instant Checkout capabilities directly within ChatGPT.

Promoted Listings Ads

eBay reported total advertising revenue of $525 Million in Q3, representing 2.6% of GMV.

First-party ads (all of the various cost per click, cost per sale, Store and Offsite Promoted Listings products) delivered $496 Million in revenue, up 23% year over year, while eBay continues to intentionally reduce third-party ads which brought in only $7 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 it is tracking advertising revenue from eBay's other businesses like TCGPlayer and their Qoo10 marketplace in Japan.

According to Iannone, about 1.2 Billion of the 2.4 Billion listings on the platform were promoted during Q3, with over 4.4 Million sellers adopting at least one Promoted Listings ad product during the quarter

It's difficult to determine exactly how to interpret that last stat since eBay has not disclosed the total number of currently active sellers, but it does at least show a steady increase this year with Q1 reporting 3.7 Million and Q2 reporting 4.1 Million respectively for the number of sellers using at least one ad product.

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!

Iannone told investors that customer satisfaction has remained strong with the new attribution model, but once again actual sellers tell a different story, saying they are seeing no significant increase in sales or return on investment - only a massive money grab by eBay.

The new ad attribution model is expected to expand to the US and Canada in January 2026, and sellers in those markets are not happy about it either.

Iannone showed an embarrassing lack of understanding about Promoted Listings ad attribution, parroting one analyst's incorrect usage of "Halo" terminology which does not apply to the new attribution model.

Michael Morton from Moffett Nathanson asked:

I think you rolled out Halo attribution in the US and North American markets starting in 2026 and I think you had a lot of success with that in other countries, so wondering what the expectations are there to drive ads and the take rate?

Iannone answered:

On the ads attribution change, we think that the new Halo attribution better aligns the value of our CPA [Cost Per Acquisition] ads with the volicity that we provide to sellers and I think it helps better calibrate the return on ad spend levels between CPA and CPC [Cost Per Click].

You're right Michael, this is something that we released back in Germany in February of this year, expanded in the June time frame to other key markets and then we announced today we plan to roll that to US and Canada in the new year.

This was really based on the learnings that we saw from other markets where those learnings said that what we saw from sellers was they can certainly adjust and adapt their bids as a result of these changes but the net effect of the attribution change was positive for our ads monetization in Germany.

And importantly we're very focused on the ROAS [Return On Ad Spend] levels for our sellers and our ROAS levels remain healthy and they continue to adopt our CPA ads, so that's why we've extended it now to the US and Canadian markets.

Promoted Listings Halo Attribution is part of the current model which has been in effect since 2023 - when the new policy goes into effect in January, Halo and Direct attribution will no longer be used and will instead be replaced by the new model which will simply show sales as "attributed" in Sales reports.

From eBay's FAQ in the announcement about the new attribution model:

What will happen to Direct attribution and Halo item attribution for general campaigns?

As of January 13, 2026, items promoted using a general campaign strategy will no longer use Direct attribution and Halo item attribution when sales are reported or ad fees are charged. Historical Sales reports will continue to include Direct and Halo item sales from the respective dates before January 13, 2026.

If the CEO of the company doesn't even understand their own ad products, what hope do sellers on the platform have - especially consumer sellers or smaller mom and pop businesses who may not have experience with industry standards and practices for online advertising?

UK C2C Initiatives & Returns

CFO Peggy Alford also told investors eBay is expecting year over year take rate expansion primarily driven by 1st party ad revenue growth and re-monetizing private sales in the UK through the implementation of Buyer Protection Fees and Simple Delivery managed shipping mandate.

Interestingly, she also noted a significant expense increase attributed to Transaction Losses, which were up 19% largely due to consumer protection costs with Simple Delivery as well as some unspecified increases in buyer and seller fraud.

...and then lastly Transaction Losses were up 19%. A lot of it had to do with our higher consumer protection losses that were due to the ramp of the UK managed shipping program as well as some unfavorable fluxuations in buyer and seller fraud.

This is an area that fluctuates quarter by quarter but nothing really concerning in the trends.

UK sellers had questioned whether the protection for loss or damage in transit offered by Simple Delivery was being covered by the shipping carriers or eBay themselves - and based on the comments on this earnings call, it appears the answer is likely mostly the latter.

Alford also mentioned eBay has seen a recent uptick in returns and canceled orders, which she mostly attributed to sellers and buyers reacting to new tariffs and trade policies - but I have to wonder how much the new forced 30 day free returns for any reason policy that went into effect for Motors P&A in July might have also contributed to rising return rates.

Final Thoughts

eBay managed to pull off significant GMV growth this quarter, but questions remain about whether it's a sustainable long-term trend.

And despite Iannone's best efforts to paint ad attribution changes as a positive, sellers see no value added and no real upside as far as increased sales or improved Return On Investment - only a massive money grab by eBay at sellers' expense.

eBay's share price fell ~9% after the call, reflecting investor disappointment with weaker than expected guidance for Q4 and concerns that GMV growth may not be as durable as Iannone and Alford would like everyone to believe.

eBay Earnings News

Liz Morton Twitter Facebook LinkedIn

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.