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eBay executives were wining and dining Wall Street analysts on Wednesday evening in advance of Thursday's Analyst Day briefing. eBay CEO John Donahoe, who is fond of basketball analogies, typically lays out a 3-year plan and talks about his management playbook at the meetings, held every other year.

Donahoe shared some of his latest thinking during a Wall Street Journal breakfast meeting in January, and it's likely analysts will hear more of the same. Coming off the best year since becoming CEO, the eBay Board of Directors gave Donahoe and his team their full approval for their 2012 performance - Donahoe received a one-time performance bonus of nearly $15 million. His job on Thursday is to share with analyst how he plans to beat his own performance.

Analysts issued reports in advance of the meeting outlining what they expected to hear on Thursday. Cowen and Company's John Blackledge said he's looking for 3-year operating guidance ('13-'15) for Marketplaces and Paypal. "Additionally, we expect an update on mobile commerce for both Marketplaces and Paypal, recent seller changes, PayPal offline initiative, local same day delivery, among other things, including the Marketplace Fairness Act.

Janney Montgomery Scott's Shawn Milne was also interested in hearing about the plans for eBay's operating units; PayPal's mobile and point of sale initiatives; Marketplace GMV drivers including mobile, local (eBay Now) and emerging markets; and discussion around the Spring Seller Release. He also wants to hear about eBay's increased competition with Amazon.

"Additionally, while Marketplace active user growth improved in FY12 (+12% in Q4), we believe eBay needs to answer the key question of potentially offering a loyalty/shipping service similar to Amazon Prime to further close customer acquisition/frequency gap," Milne wrote.

What those analysts did not mention was eBay's search algorithm and specifically about its Project Cassini implementation; how eBay is approaching paid search and what it is doing to drive traffic; and how Google Shopping changes have impacted its traffic and ad spend. Listeners will likely hear a lot about eBay's mobile initiatives, cross border trade and opportunity in BRIC countries; and PayPal initiatives in mobile and offline/point of sale.

Update: In his report, Neil Doshi of Citi asked:

1) What is the long-term growth and margin outlook for the Marketplace Segment?
2) What additional steps can eBay take to improve the Marketplace Buyer & Seller experience?
3) How do eBay and Paypal position themselves as key partners within the global cross-border eCommerce trade?
4) What is the long-term growth and margin outlook for the Payments Segment?
5) How large can Paypal's Point Of Sale & Offline Payments offerings become?
6) What is the potential extent of synergies between the Marketplace, Payments, and GSI Commerce segments?
7) What are the key growth drivers for eBay's Marketing Services segment?
8) What is eBay's strategy for benefiting from secular trends in Mobile Internet, Local Targeting, and Social Media?
9) How has eBay's capital structure and capital allocation philosophy changed?
10) What is eBay's M&A philosophy as we move into 2013 and then 2014?

EcommerceBytes will live-blog eBay Analyst Day, which is being webcast beginning at 8 am Pacific (11 am Eastern), check the EcommerceBytes Blog once eBay's Analyst Day kicks off.

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About the author:

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com.

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