EBAY Boosts Fashion Retail Offering With Generative AI Feature

April 11, 2024

43 3 minutes read

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eBay EBAY unveiled a “shop the look” generative AI-powered feature within the iOS mobile app, offering personalized recommendations for customers.

This interactive feature suggests similar items and outfit inspirations based on customers’ shopping history, enabling fashionistas to shop preowned and luxury items that match their personal style.

Further, this feature will appear on both the website’s homepage and landing page for shoppers who have viewed at least 10 fashion items in the past 180 days.

eBay is expected to gain solid traction among fashion enthusiasts on the back of this generative AI-backed feature.

Moreover, the new feature will enable the company to capitalize on growth opportunities present in the generative AI market. Per a Fortune Business Insights report, the global generative AI market size is likely to hit $67.18 billion in 2024 and reach $967.65 billion by 2032, witnessing a CAGR of 39.6% during the forecast period of 2024-2032.

eBay Inc. Price and Consensus

eBay Inc. price-consensus-chart | eBay Inc. Quote

Stiff Competition

The latest release will aid this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company to compete well with its peers like Amazon AMZN, Shopify SHOP and Alibaba BABA, which are also making increasing efforts to incorporate generative AI to improve their fashion shopping experience.

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Amazon recently integrated generative AI into its online shopping experience through personalized size recommendations, a “Fit Insights” tool for sellers, AI-powered highlights from customer reviews, and reimagined size charts.

Moreover, Amazon uses deep learning algorithms based on brand size systems, product reviews, and customer fit preferences to suggest the best-fitting size, boosting its fashion shopping experience with generative AI.

Meanwhile, Shopify added a new media editor feature to its generative AI-powered suite, Shopify Magic.

This feature allows merchants to customize photo backgrounds and suggest styles for existing product images without requiring Photoshop experience.

Alibaba, on the other hand, announced its plans to enhance its customer service chatbot, Dianxiaomi, in a bid to boost the online shopping experience for its main e-commerce unit, Taobao and Tmall Group.

eBay’s Growing Fashion Efforts

The latest move bodes well for eBay’s growing efforts toward strengthening its offerings, particularly in fashion retail, which remains a growth driver for the company. Its shares have gained 19.1% on a year-to-date basis, outperforming the Retail-Wholesale sector’s 8.7% growth.

eBay launched a mobile consignment concierge, the Luxe Line, to offer a convenient selling experience, allowing visitors in Los Angeles and Las Vegas to directly access expert sellers listing and selling luxury items.

Earlier, the company introduced a luxury consignment service that allows users to connect with expert sellers who will list and sell their luxury items, like designer handbags.

With the new service, consumers can sell new and pre-owned designer handbags from top brands like Chanel, Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Prada and Saint Laurent through a seamless consignment process, including eBay Authenticity Guarantee checkmarks.

eBay’s acquisition of Certilogo, an AI-powered provider of digital IDs and authentication for apparel and fashion goods, remains noteworthy. The acquisition enables eBay to provide consumers with reliable product information and activate circular services. It also offers brands and designers to manage garment lifecycles, marking its presence in the fashion retail industry.

All the above-mentioned efforts are expected to further solidify eBay’s position in the booming fashion e-commerce market, presenting a significant growth opportunity for the company. Per a Research and Markets report, this particular market is expected to hit $905.62 billion in 2024 and reach $1.35 trillion by 2028, exhibiting a CAGR of 10.6% between 2024 and 2028.

Growing prospects in this booming market are likely to aid the company’s overall financial performance in the near term.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2024 total revenues stands at $10.23 billion, indicating year-over-year growth of 1.2%.

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