Is eBay actually sexy again as the ecommerce old-timer’s stock surges to an all-time high?
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The 30-year-old auction site is riding hot, historically strong product categories like collectibles and trading cards to its best performance in years.
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July 31, 2025
07:17 PM
Fortune
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·eBayIs eBay actually sexy again as the ecommerce old-timer’s stock surges to an all-time high?By Jason Del ReyBy Jason Del Rey CorrespondentJason Del Rey CorrespondentJason Del Rey is a nology correspondent at Fortune and a co-chair of the Fortune Brainstorm and Fortune Brainstorm AI conferences.SEE FULL BIO Renewed interest in Pokemon and sports cards have helped boost eBay's historically-strong collectibles .Sara Stathas/Bloomberg--Getty ImagesEbay turns 30 this September and the company is showing some signs that it’s starting to turn back the clock
The auction giant’s stock surged more than 19% on Thursday to an all-time high of $92 a on the back of revenue growth and earnings that both surpassed analyst expectations, and an outlook that was far less gloomy than it could have been
That’s the top-line good news
The reality check, though, is that Ebay still accounts for less than 4% of the overall e-commerce market in the U.S., compared to around 40% for Amazon, 6% for Walmart, and pressure from a collection of discount or duct-specific apps and marketplaces from Temu to Whatnot, a -ing commerce startup valued at $5 billion
So what gives? Where is the eBay optimism coming from and is this current moment an aberration and blip or, as the internet analyst Mark Mahaney wrote in a re note on Thursday, “something of an inflection point”? As Mahaney wrote, eBay’s gross volume and revenue growth rates, excluding the impact of foreign exchange rate changes, both rose 4% year-over-year in the past quarter
Those numbers sound meager because they are, but it’s the fastest that the commerce marketplace has grown in two years—which is…something
The one-time e-commerce darling has been trying to lean into its historic strengths or “focus areas”—duct where it can win—and that seems to be paying off
Those grew 10% in the quarter compared to 1% for everything else. “Collectibles was once again the largest contributor to growth as year-over-year growth in trading cards GMV accelerated for the 10th straight quarter on the back of continued momentum in both collectible card games and sports trading cards,” CEO Jamie Iannone told analysts on the earnings call
Collectible have been booming across the board since the onset of the pandemic, as nostalgia coupled with new shopping experiences and sales tactics drive renewed interest in trading cards Pokemon as well as sports cards
Startups Whatnot, Fanatics, and Courtyard, which is selling $50 million in cards and comics a month, are playing a role
But eBay is still the biggest online player in the space and also capitalizing on the consumer interest
To that end, the company is pushing aggressively into -ing commerce, with eBay , where Fanatics and Whatnot are finding success, and the early signs are encouraging, according to Iannone. “We have already seen significant evidence that commerce can deepen engagement among eBay enthusiasts and unlock even greater velocity in our strongest verticals, which validates our continued investment in this experience,” he told analysts. (For what it’s worth, top -ing card seller Rene Nezhoda, of Storage Wars fame, had this to say eBay when I interviewed him his on Whatnot, where he sells $15 million to $18 million a year in sports cards. “I wouldn’t be surprised if eBay might become the market leader because they just have such a big user database,” he told Fortune in June.) Ebay’s Iannone said his company is also seeing both top-line and bottom-line benefits from integrating the Klarna Buy Now Pay Later payment method into the shopping site, by expanding its on-site advertising , and by integrating generative and agentic AI experiences into the shopping marketplace for both buyers or sellers, though it’s too early to tell how much the latter will boost the long term
No, eBay isn’t immune to the U.S.-China tariff war, though it shouldn’t be crippled by it
No, it’s not a threat to giants Amazon and Walmart that specialize in everyday, new goods
But riding hot, historically strong duct , while keeping up with new industry tablestakes Gen AI integrations for sellers and buyers, and payment types Klarna, has the 30-year-old company’s future looking brighter than it has in a long while
And that’s not nothing
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