eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Steve Priest: Good afternoon, Doug. I think at a macro level, I would say that we will continue, as we always have been to lean into the short-term to drive operational efficiencies through the likes of the structured cost program where we’re going very deep on the organization, while at the same time continue to invest for the future for the long-term trajectory and growth of the business. In terms of the investments we’ll be making in 2023 is continue the strategic playbook. It’s continuing to invest in product that customers want to continue to invest in trust on the platform and then continue to invest in full funnel marketing in terms of making sure that we get the communication matters out to our customers. The 2% increase in year-over-year non-GAAP expense growth includes the 120 basis points of margin headwinds that we talked about associated with M&A and the eBay International Shipping program, and it’s net of $100 million of the structural cost program that we’ve laid out.

So if I stand back, we’ve got a couple of headwinds with those two items I’ve talked about. We’re leaning in to drive cost efficiencies, and we’re continuing to invest for the future long-term sustainability of the business.

Doug Anmuth: Great. Thank you, Steve.

Operator: Your next question is from the line of Deepak Mathivanan with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Deepak Mathivanan: Hey guys, thanks for taking the question. So first, can you give us some color on the growth in focus categories where you’ve had the user experience enhancements for a while now, specifically, sneakers and luxury watches and some of those categories. I understand that macro is volatile, but are you seeing sustained share gains in these categories now? Any additional color on recent growth there would be great. And then, Steve, can you unpack the 2023 EPS guide for us for a little bit? Clearly, we recognize that there’s a lot of uncertainties. But how should we think about the magnitude and cadence of buybacks for this year? And maybe is it fair to use 2022 seasonality also as a proxy for quarterly cadence on EPS as well?

Jamie Iannone: Yeah. So — hi, Deepak, let me take the first one. So yeah, we’re really pleased with what we’re seeing with focused categories. It’s growing seven points faster than the rest of the platform. The way to think about that is plus 2% if you look at it on a quarter-over-quarter basis. When you look at our coverage, we’re at about 25% across the whole business. If you look at our big three markets where we’ve been focusing, it’s about 28% coverage, so making nice progress there. But it’s not just about investing in new coverage. It’s also about investing in existing categories that are driving the underlying growth in our business and balancing reinvestment there. And we’re really pleased. We continue to invest in sneakers, we launched two years ago, but we’re continuing to invest with manage shipping, which we launched in 2022.

We talked on the call about luxury goods having roughly double-digit growth rates over the past couple of years. So we are seeing that market share — return to market share growth for those businesses, which is really healthy. And I’d say the largest one of which is P&A, and we’re really excited by the progress that we’re seeing in P&A. On the product side, the work we’re doing in fitment and Guaranteed Fit and making the catalog available via the apps. The new acquisition with myFitment, further increasing our ability to do there, combined with the marketing that we’re doing in the US, we’re doing the actual personalities from car talk in the UK were associated with Pimp My Ride. So we’re really going after that enthusiast buyer, and it’s really working.

So I’m really pleased with the performance on focus categories. Steve, maybe you want to take the second part?