eBay Q4 2025 Pre-Earnings Commentary & Highlights

Liz Morton

Published: Feb 16 2026 Updated: Feb 16 2026

eBay is set to report Q4 2025 earnings February 18th at 5:00 PM Eastern. Take a look back at highlights from Q4 and what's happening so far in Q1 2026 with Value Added Resource!

Leadership Changes & Corporate News

eBay recently lost two key AI leaders as VP Customer Service & Marketing Technology, Dan Leiva, left the company in January and Chief Privacy Officer/VP AI and Data Responsibility, Dr. Anna Zeiter, departed in December to take on CEO role at W, a new European social media platform.

eBay’s Risk and Compliance leadership is once again in limbo following Ryan Jones’ move to lead Global Legal operations at ByteDance, raising questions around continuity, oversight, and governance at the company.

Corporate governance and compliance will also be in the spotlight next month as the civil suit against eBay, ex-CEO Devin Wenig, ex-Chief Communications Officer Steve Wymer and ex-SVP Global Operations Wendy Jones related to 2019 stalking scandal finally heads to trial.

eBay completed their acquisition of Norwegian secondhand marketplace, Tise, in Q4 2025, laying groundwork for C2C expansion in the region.

eBay is expanding its investment in artificial intelligence, backing AI-focused companies through eBay Ventures and forming new commercial partnerships designed to automate customer support and platform operations.

Online marketplaces have long depended on immunity provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 to shield them from accountability for items sold by third party sellers - but Congress is currently considering legislation to amend or sunset Section 230, putting eBay and others in potential liability crosshairs.

Promoted Listings Ads

At Investor Day in 2022, eBay announced they expected to double ad revenue to $2 Billion by 2025, but they've struggled to meet that goal despite resorting to significant discounting tactics to counter flagging seller adoption while many categories appear to be reaching a saturation point for Promoted Listings General cost per sale ads.

As of Q3 2025, eBay had reported ~$1.37B in first party ad revenue (total of all Promoted Listings ad offerings), meaning they'll have to have brought in ~$630 Million in Q4 to make that Investor Day 2022 prediction - which is unlikely.

If eBay misses that $2 Billion projection, it could spook investors - which is why the company is desperately spinning their wheels trying to find new and creative ways to wring more ad revenue out of sellers at every turn.

A controversial new attribution model for Promoted Listings General cost per sales ads was introduced in Germany in February 2025, expanded into the UK, Australia and other EU markets in June 2025 and finally made its way to the US and Canada in January 2026.

By simply changing the definition to include any click on an ad, regardless of whether it was made by the eventual purchaser, eBay exponentially increased the number of sales with ad fees applied - without providing any significant increase in overall sales or return on investment for sellers.

Cost per click Promoted Priority and Promoted Stores ads have been moved to monthly pacing with daily "target" budgets which slowly ratchet up ad spend as budgets are depleted early in the month and sellers are "encouraged" to up the ante to keep ads being served.

eBay is also working on adding Ambassador affiliate storefronts and eBay Live events into Promoted Stores campaigns and a quiet update to Marketing Terms hints at future plans to monetize video ads and buyers engaging with new features like a tool that allows them to compare items within search results without ever clicking through to view the full listing.

eBay Live & AI

eBay has been picking up the pace on livestream shopping in the last few months, expanding Live into more categories like Hard Goods, Health and Beauty, and Art and Antiques, and more countries.

After previous launches in Germany in November, Australia in December, and France and Italy earlier this month, eBay Live made its Canadian debut last week.

The company's newfound sense of urgency about Live shopping comes as competitor Whatnot hit over $8B in live GMV in 2025 and TikTok Shop is reportedly within striking distance of overtaking eBay in total Gross Merchandise Volume.

But live shopping isn't the only place where eBay is lagging behind, a look at recent AI initiatives also shows the company is trailing competitors who have gone all in on agentic commerce - will a newly named VP of AI Transformation be able to close the gap?

eBay quietly updated their robots.txt in December before turning heads in January with a User Agreement update that explicitly prohibits AI "buy for me" agents and LLM scraping bots from interacting with the site.

Meanwhile, eBay is doubling down on ramping up AI powered customer service solutions to cut costs, but sellers say they miss the human touch.

Focus Categories

eBay is introducing new features designed to encourage cross platform traffic and shopping with Goldin Auctions subsidiary - but will self-preferencing practices gain regulatory scrutiny?

Mega-seller Rick Probstein made waves when he announced he was leaving eBay to start his own marketplace, Snype, - but a massive failure to launch, an apparent security breach, and alleged shill bidding shut the site down within weeks, sending Probstein back to eBay in a move that raised transparency concerns for hobby enthusiasts.

eBay has expanded authentication services in Germany with optional, paid verification for select fashion and accessories and the addition of Authenticity Guarantee for Jewelry.

Fees & Shipping

eBay announced a Final Value Fee increase across several categories for UK and Germany starting February 12, 2026.

More UK private sellers were forced into using mandatory Simple Delivery managed shipping in December even as Q3 2025 earnings report showed transaction losses due to damage claims spiking ~19%.

eBay UK also expanded their HubEurope partnership with Smart Shipping for business sellers and made more changes to Buyer Protection Fee calculations for private sellers in November.

And eBay Canada began a phased rollout of International Shipping solution to help sellers navigate cross border trade challenges in October.

That's it for the eBay Q4 2025 pre-earnings highlights - catch up on Q3 2025 earnings commentary and stay tuned for more coverage after the call from Value Added Resource!

eBay Earnings

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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.