Will GameStop Make a Bid for eBay?

by: Shanna

Anybody that will make the platform stable for sellers is a win for me. That's all it would take for sellers to return.

by: pace306

How do you say “looser” in gamer speak??

eBays fancy numbers are all fluff, but people want to believe them so badly that they give them credibility

Ask any seller how eBay is doing and you will know. Ask them if sales increase y/y ? Ask if cs is worth anything? Ask about returns or one way feedback issues.

You could ask about high fvf costs, you could ask about crazy costs for live shows ala Whatnot that no one cares about or you can ask about the Mafioso pay for play behaviors where ebay wants to make 3x what you do on an item or not get seen

All this guy sees are the bright lights and fancy numbers…..

The soft white underbelly is much different!

by: pace306

“Readers may remember eBay is in the process of acquiring the Depop marketplace from Etsy.”

Every one here said it was a stupid waste of our FVF. They went and did live garbage anyone (on the front page that’s hard to escape), Depop is an also also ran, better off buying Mercari (though that’s where ex eBay sellers went) or maybe Poshmark since clothes are forever and Pokemon cards will up n die like pet rocks.

Stupid people doing stupid things

by: lstreeter

Please, someone, anyone with a brain, buy ebay and bring it back to a seller platform!  They would sure have their work cut out for them!

by: etectra

"“Readers may remember eBay is in the process of acquiring the Depop marketplace from Etsy.”

Should be blocked by the federal government.

eBay is a long dying platform far from their glory days of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Yet even their glory days is based upon stealing the ideas of other people and companies. eBay did not invent online auctions or fixed priced items. In fact, eBay was sued for infringing on 1995 online patents invented by someone else.

Pictures within listings, eBay's own API, scheduled listings, listing software were all invented by others. eBay bought PayPal - not invent it. Even when eBay owned PayPal it was the Dutch banking giant ING actually doing all the international transactions behind the scenes. Meg Whitman's tenure at eBay was based solely on stealing the ideas of others - that is why here tenure at HP was a total disaster.

eBay's income is greatly overrated as it dependent on ripping off its users rather than growing sales.

FVF on shipping has been a massive multi billion dollar scam since 2010. The moral way to implement this would to compare the cost of a label to what a buyer was charged and only charge FVF on any overcharge. This is easily implemented on third party label providers via API calls. Retail purchases of would not be included as a way encourage people to move to lower cost commercial rate labels; however, even retail labels / meters could be implemented with some further modifications.

eBay forced American tax payers to subsidize eBay and their Chinese vendors by abusing a 1969 UPU program designed to help poor countries. eBay cost USPS billions in loses during Obama's 8 years in office, which they made up for by raising domestic rates, closing facilities and shortening hours. This also destroyed the jobs of U.S. based eBay resellers who could not compete due tot he subsidized shipping labels from China. This also destroyed American manufacturing jobs. Those that run eBay are traitors!

eBay charged higher shipping rates and only $50 insurance to non top rated sellers while giving $100 insurance and lower shipping rates to top rated sellers. Yet any of these sellers could go to third party label providers like PirateShip and get $100 insurance and lower rates. After USPS combined Commercial Base and Commercial Plus into one Commercial rate eBay continued their scam for awhile by giving top rated sellers $100 insurance plus a discount off the commercial rate while non top rated were given $50 insurance and made to pay the commercial rate.

eBay refused to implement Cubic rates on its site even though PirateShip and other third party label providers implemented these rates.

eBay refused to allow decimal points for package dimensions and told users to round up to the nearest inch in violation of USPS rules. This meant some packages were charged dimensional rates when they did not qualify. This also meant some packages were charged higher cubic rate tiers or disqualified from cubic rates altogether.

eBay sells private insurance, which competes against USPS insurance and denies USPS income. The profit USPS makes on its insurance is used to offset other USPS costs, thus keeping their rates lower. eBay's private insurance is designed to deny income to USPS to their rates go up and thus eBay makes more money from FVF.

eBay hides listings and shipping options.

eBay's so called glitches, which actually require extensive coding on their part, result in sellers be charged for services they did not order, even double billing sellers. eBay's customer service system is designed specifically to make sellers to just give up and pay as even if a sellers gets some charges removed they have lost money due to the amount of time required contacting eBay.

eBay total number of so called active buyers is 25% less that their peak number. eBay has lost millions of buyers and sellers. Their primarily income generator is to scam their users!

Buy eBay if you want to throw money away as its rotten to the core and run by sociopaths.

by: Rexford

Careful what you wish for.  Biggest caveat--GameStop's lack of robust funds to finance a deal.

Why a GameStop-eBay Merger is Considered Bad for Sellers:

--Increased Fees and Reduced Support: To manage the massive debt from a potential $56 billion purchase, GameStop would likely cut costs and raise seller fees.
--Shift to Corporate Inventory: GameStop might turn eBay into an "FBA-style" platform (Fulfillment By Amazon), prioritizing its own inventory and warehouse fulfillment over independent, third-party sellers.
--Platform Mismanagement: Concerns exist that GameStop lacks the expertise to run a massive, diverse marketplace, potentially resulting in lower site quality and user traffic.
--Specialization Over Generalization: GameStop may prioritize, promote, or favor specific niches like collectibles, trading cards (TCG), and video games over other categories, making the platform less suitable for general resellers.
--Loss of Collector Alternatives: eBay acts as a cheaper alternative for used games compared to GameStop’s pawn-shop model; a merger could kill this competition, harming sellers who depend on competitive pricing.
--Platform Instability: The high-debt financing of the deal could lead to a "feedback loop" of cost-cutting and declining user activity, threatening the long-term viability of the marketplace

by: pace306

Rex, you’re %100 right that it could be the frying pan into the fire - neither bunch of idiots is any good !

by: Snapped

Rex, seems like eBay, with the exception of purchasing itself, can manage to hit all six of those bullets without any third party help.  In fact, two through six are already in progress.  

The offering price is absurd too.  GS doesn’t seem to realize eBay doesn’t really have ANY tangible assets except a couple duct-taped server farms, a fancy boardroom and an executive saloon.  

by: Rexford

Snapped, so true.