Top 100 Fastest-Growing Retailers: #51 eBay

Continuing our coverage of Total Retail's recently released Top 100 Fastest-Growing Retailers report, which ranks publicly traded retailers on year-over-year net sales growth, we will be highlighting select companies on this year's list. We want to provide you with some reasons why these retailers were able to grow sales (and in many cases net earnings) in an ultra-competitive retail environment. This week we feature eBay, the online marketplace. eBay posted a 6.55 percent year-over-year sales increase in its 2017 fiscal year.

Helping to drive eBay’s resurgence in 2017 was the launch of a price match guarantee program, eBay Deals, which applies to more than 50,000 items featured on the marketplace. eBay Deals are open to everyone and always ship for free — no membership required, unlike its primary competitor's Prime program — and include trending inventory from across all eBay categories.

“The vast majority of our deals are already lower priced or equal to our competitors, but if a shopper finds it for less, we’ll gladly match the price of our competitors,” said Hal Lawton, senior vice president of North America at eBay, in a company press release.

In addition, eBay is partnering with online retailer Spring. Spring will be getting a dedicated storefront on eBay, giving shoppers access to hundreds of brands across clothing, shoes, accessories, jewelry, beauty and more.

“The Spring and eBay partnership is evidence of a growing trend in which retailers are partnering — instead of competing — with other retailers,” said Jill Ramsey, vice president of merchandising at eBay, in a company press release. “With Spring, we can bring even more coveted merchandise to our buyers.”

To help it carry the momentum into 2019, eBay is making strategic investments. In December 2017, it acquired Terapeak, a company that uses supply, demand and pricing data to help its marketplace sellers know what to sell, when to sell it, and at what price.

To see the full rankings, as well as profiles of some of the other companies featured on this year's list, download Total Retail's eighth annual Top 100 Fastest-Growing Retailers list today!