New ChannelAdvisor Data Just In: Good For Amazon, Google; Worse For eBay

• Shares of Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN and Alphabet Inc GOOG have surged year-to-date, while eBay Inc EBAY shares are down 50 percent.
• Raymond James’ Aaron Kessler maintained a Strong Buy rating on Amazon, an Outperform rating on Google and a Market Perform rating on eBay.
• New ChannelAdvisor data indicated that Amazon and Google witnessed strong shopping in the second week of December, while eBay’s SSS weakened slightly, Kessler mentioned.

ChannelAdvisor released the Same-Store Sales [SSS] data for December Week 2 for ecommerce companies like Amazon, eBay and Google. The data showed that Week 2 ecommerce SSS accelerated to 13.5 percent from 10.9 percent in Week 1.

The data also showed that Holiday year-to-date sales are tracking up 13.6 percent, in-line with Raymond James’ estimate of low-to-mid teens growth y/y.

Analyst Aaron Kessler mentioned that the shopping data for both Amazon and Google was the strongest in Week 2, while eBay’s SSS softened slightly. He added, “We believe holiday YTD SSS data from CA supports our positive bias on shares of Amazon and Google and neutral view on eBay shares.”

eBay

ChannelAdvisor data showed that eBay’s SSS for December Week 2 rose by 0.9 percent y/y, as compared to 2.8 percent recorded in the first week. “For 4Q15, we estimate U.S. Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) growth for eBay of 5.0% y/y vs. 2.6% y/y in 3Q (on a ~370 bp easier comp),” Kessler stated.

Amazon

The company’s SSS for December Week 2 increased 19.5 percent y/y, as compared to a 17.2 percent increase in the first week. For Holiday YTD, Amazon’s SSS rose 19 percent. “For 4Q15, we estimate Amazon U.S. Electronics and Other (most comparable to CA data) revenue growth of 31.5% y/y vs. 34.7% y/y in 3Q,” Kessler wrote.

Google

Although ChannelAdvisor data showed softer Google search, it reflected strong Google shopping trends. Google Search’s SSS declined 13 percent y/y during December Week 2, as compared to a 10 percent decline in December Week 1. Google Shopping SSS rose by 35 percent in Week 2, as against an 18 percent increase in SSS in December Week 1.

“Likewise, for the holiday YTD period, search SSS have increased 14.4% y/y while Google Shopping has increased 18.4% y/y,” Kessler added.