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elgato · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 17229 Location: Texas

"Cyber Monday Deals May Tank Valuations Of Web-Only Retailers"

As the creator of the Web-only Retail Index, Seeking Alpha followers asked me to opine on how Cyber Monday may impact valuations of public web-only retailers during the week of November 28th 2011 and then again during earnings season.

With adjusted median EBITDA multiples in the Web-only Retail Index already up 17% to 9.5xs in October, it is quite possible that shareholders may end up with a lump of coal in their stocking.

First a disclaimer. I hold web-only retailers in high regard and earn my living as an M&A investment banker in the sector.

My purpose is to share actionable investment commentary. In other words, is there a valuation discrepancy? Based on my judgment as a banker in the sector I believe there may be such a discrepancy.

Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday was unofficially coined in 2005 and has become one of the busiest for on-line retailers.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/305671-cyber-monday-deals-may-tank-valuations-of-web-only-retailers?source=yahoo

elgato · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 17229 Location: Texas

"Survey Shows Marketplace Sellers Are Not Optimistic about Holiday Sales"

A majority of sellers surveyed predicted their holiday sales would be about the same or worse than last year, while 32 percent said they believed their holiday sales would be higher compared to last year. EcommerceBytes conducted the survey of readers in early November. Half of the sellers responding said their sales were down in October across all of the channels on which they sold compared to October of 2010. The majority of sellers responding to the survey sold up to $100,000 in goods online over the past 12 month; 85% of them sell on eBay and 29% sell on their own website.

http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y11/m11/i09/s01

elgato · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 17229 Location: Texas

"Small Marketplace Sellers See 68 Percent Growth on Cyber Monday"

Amazon again handily beat eBay for Cyber Monday sales growth from large merchant sales - but neither company's sales growth was as good as last year.

It's encouraging to see smaller marketplaces showing good growth, and this year, Outright shared data about small sellers who sell on larger marketplaces. Outright's sole proprietors did better on Amazon, eBay and Etsy (68%) than large merchants did on Amazon (35% - 52%). However, this probably had more to do with small sellers investing in their multi-channel businesses, where large merchants have been established for years.

http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl