‘Chanel bags and lettuce seeds’: Luxury bargain hunters embrace eBay

Over the past few years, the business has been investing in tools for collectors and consumers of luxury goods, including authenticity guarantees for shoes and handbags.

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EBay recently launched a collectables storage facility called eBay Vault, which lets users store products such as trading cards in a climate-controlled and secured warehouse from which they can sell their goods through the eBay platform.

Ramadge has been with eBay Australia for five years, having stepped into the role of senior director of product and shipping after a decade working in Silicon Valley.

He agrees there is plenty of “doom and gloom” in discussions about rising interest rates and inflation, but says now is the time for a company such as eBay to leverage what it does best.

“You can sell and free up some cash if you’ve got stuff around the house,” he said.

“And it’s still a place for you to go and get those nice luxuries, those nice hobby items that can keep you happy even through a tough economic time.”

Australia is a small slice of eBay’s total business, but documents filed with the corporate regulator show the company has increased profit in the face of COVID lockdowns across the country.

The retail giant’s local operations made a $13.6 million profit in 2021, up by 47 per cent on 2020.

At the start of lockdowns in 2020, the platform had a surge in customers logging on to sell used goods for the first time. Ramadge says that trend is happening again now that many households are staring down rising mortgage payments.

It’s four months until the festive shopping season begins, and with early signs that spending is slowing, there are no expectations it will be as strong as previous years.

“I think that the macro environment means it will be a challenging shopping season,” Ramadge said.

“The fact that everyone’s out and about combined with the tighter economic environment means it’ll be a little more challenging this year, that’s for sure.”

But there’s hope that the current conditions will help spur Australians’ passion for the “circular economy”, where secondhand items change hands instead of shoppers going to big department stores for gifts.

This trend plays to eBay’s strengths.

“We’re seeing a lot of activity and interest in buying and selling pre-loved items, especially from younger consumers, like Gen Z, and In areas like fashion,” Ramadge said.

“So I think there are some trends within categories, where you’ll see enormously strong year-over-year growth.”

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