Photo Credit: Mike Knell / Flickr.com

With the holiday season around the corner, market expectations from retail and e-commerce players normally run high. But eBay’s (Nasdaq: EBAY) recent result announcement delivered a lackluster outlook. Even though it surpassed expectations for the previous quarter, its outlook has disappointed the market, causing the stock to tumble.

eBay’s Financials

eBay’s Q3 revenues grew 6% over the year to $2.2 billion, ahead of the Street’s expectations of $2.186 billion. EPS of $0.45 was also ahead of the market’s forecast of $0.44 for the quarter.

During the quarter, gross merchandise volume (GMV) grew 3% over the year to $20.1 billion. It added over 1 million active buyers across its platforms, to end the quarter with 165 million global active buyers. Analysts had forecast a user base of 167 million for the quarter.

The Marketplace platforms delivered 2% growth in revenues to $1.8 billion and $19 billion of GMV. StubHub also delivered a strong quarter with GMV growing 23% to $1.1 billion and revenues increasing 32% to $263 million. The Classifieds platforms grew 11% to $197 million, primarily driven by the Automotive and Real Estate verticals.

For the current quarter, eBay forecast revenues of $2.36 billion-$2.41 billion with an EPS of $0.52-$0.54. The forecast was at the lower end of the Street’s outlook of $2.399 billion for the quarter with an EPS of $0.54. Wits its outlook, eBay will end the year with revenues between $8.95 billion and $9 billion and EPS of $1.85-$1.90. The Street had forecast full year revenues of $8.95 billion and an EPS of $1.89.

eBay’s User Experience Improvements

eBay continued to make several advancements in improving search and related user experience. During the quarter, eBay added a new feature called Quick Sale to its mobile offering. Quick Sales is a targeted consumer destination for selling mobile phones.