EBay Struggles With Turnaround as Goliath Amazon Holds Sway
- Current quarter sales forecast may miss analysts’ estimates
- E-commerce site gained 2 million active buyers in past quarter
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EBay Inc. failed to sustain investor enthusiasm that its turnaround efforts were working, reporting sales growth that continued to lag behind the e-commerce industry and didn’t narrow the gap with giant Amazon.com Inc.
Chief Executive Officer Devin Wenig’s decisions to increase spending on marketing, redesign EBay’s homepage to personalize products for each visitor and make it easier for users to navigate the site’s 1 billion listings produced a sales gain of 3.7 percent in the first quarter, similar growth to the prior period. His goal, almost two years after the company split with payments business PayPal Holdings Inc., is to make EBay a go-to for unique items not found on Amazon.