eBay | Fundamental Analysis | MUST READ !

eBay was one of the main beneficiaries at the beginning of the pandemic. People turned to the e-commerce and auction site for items they needed and wanted to buy, avoiding in-person purchases.

Now the trend is shifting in eBay's favor as the economy around the world recovers. Against this backdrop, the company plans to report Q4 earnings tomorrow. While long-term investors don't usually buy and sell stocks based on short-term events, some employ earnings reports as markers to determine whether to add to their holdings or as a clue to possible bargain opportunities. With that in mind, let's see if investors should buy this retailer's stock before the report comes out.

eBay does not own or sell merchandise on its platform. Instead, the company creates and operates a platform that connects buyers and sellers. To generate revenue, eBay charges a different fee for each transaction on the platform.

Perhaps buyers and sellers are equally important to eBay's success. Buyers would stop visiting the site if there were no attractive items to buy. Conversely, sellers would stop listing items if there weren't many people willing to buy them.

The COVID pandemic brought millions of new buyers to eBay. From the Q2 of 2020 to Q1 of 2021, the total number of active eBay buyers improved from 161 million to 166 million. However, eBay is now reducing the number of active buyers as the economy reopens and buyers have alternatives again.

In addition, management has implemented a new strategy of decreased marketing and promotions aimed at lower-cost shoppers. These two forces working together caused the number of active buyers to drop from a peak of 166 million to 154 million at the end of Q3.

The decline in the number of shoppers may be one of the main reasons why gross merchandise value (total sales value) fell more than 12% year over year to $19.4 billion. This figure is very important because eBay earns revenue by taking a percentage of this value as a commission. Nevertheless, despite the drop in gross merchandise value, eBay has increased its revenue year after year.

How has it been able to achieve this? By increasing the percentage it charges per transaction. eBay's collection rate per transaction increased from 9.2 percent in the second quarter of 2020 to 12.1 percent in the Q3 of 2021.

One might assume that sellers are not thrilled with the fee increase. Yet the same cannot be said for the number of sellers on the eBay platform, which has remained unchanged at 19 million over the past year.

Perhaps sellers are happy that eBay is offering more services for higher fees. In recent quarters, eBay has been improving its services to encourage more transactions. One of the main friction points on the eBay platform is trust between buyers and sellers, and this is where management has focused its efforts to increase investment.

In the latest of these initiatives, eBay announced on Jan. 25 that it will offer an authentication service for trading cards over $750 sold on eBay. Consumers can now shop with peace of mind knowing that eBay will authenticate these cards to make sure they are not counterfeit and come as advertised.

Trading cards are an important category on eBay, with a gross merchandise value of $2 billion in the first half of 2021. Authentication comes in addition to pricey handbags, sneakers, and watches.

eBay stock is trading at a price to free cash flow ratio of 15.7 and a projected price to earnings ratio of 13.2. These prices are roughly in line with the average sales level of the past five years. In the near term, the company may continue to be challenged by the changing of the stay-at-home trend.

In the long term, however, an increasing share of purchases is moving online. In addition, eBay gets a larger share of each transaction and reinvests some of its profits, strengthening its services. eBay may not be an explosive growth stock, but it offers investors good value at the current price. The stock is probably worth buying before or after an upcoming earnings report, especially if you plan to buy and hold it long enough to benefit from the company's growth over time.