Would eBay Improve Under Google Ownership?

by: Anonymous Annie

I'm afraid that there's absolutely no way I could EVER trust any entity with ''eBay'' in its name.

Even if a new owner did a clean sweep and fired EVERY executive, policy maker, programmer, IT person, secretary, janitor, groundskeeper and security guard... the name ''eBay'' and everything it represents is FOREVER tarnished.

Beyond rehabilitation. Beyond hope. Beyond my ability to trust it ever again.

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me eight-hundred-fifty-four times... shame on me.

by: Rexford

In my opinion, if JD is allowed to continue his "disruptive innovation", someone will end up buying it because I feel that he is sending it over a cliff. I don't think it will be Google however.  I think it is more likely that it would be bought by a huge Chinese conglomerate.

If I believed in conspiracy, I'd say that this is why JD is favoring the Chinese sellers and this is why they get top search placement.  I'd ask myself if he were actually positioning eBay for such a sale to the  Chinese.  However, I don't believe there is such a conspiracy, but it is a theory that I have thought about. He does come from Bain, and they do break apart big companies and sell them off for huge profits, and he would stand to make a fortune if they did sell.

by: Rexford

And, and off topic, I think CASSINI search is the new "New Coke".

by: bunnspec

@Rexford- If you google "John Donohoe letter to the UN Secretary General" you will see the global politics behind JDs "disruptive innovation". He is touting ebay as a "responsible member of the global community" and what is really happening is emerging markets are sharing in the redistribution of American "wealth". It is just as phoney as "Hope and Change" and just as insidious...JD is an adherent of the NWO, plain and simple-look who his wife is, also...

by: frustrated

A:

No one knows.

If they do what The End said, maybe.

But we all thought ebay would be better off without Meg Whitman, riiight?

by: Nolle

google won't buy ebay cause that would be competitive with their primary income source - 3rd party ads, which is 5x greater than ebay's entire revenue.  you don't poop in your own sandbox.

if anything, they could buy it with spare cash, play with it (like they love to do), and then kill it.  without a large congregate, everyone would need google for exposure.  good for amazon too, another giant customer of google.

paypal is another story.  google would love to own the payment processor of it's customers.  it would serve their customer base and make them more money.  perfect synergy.

the bad part is that small sellers don't buy enough google ads, so they would care even less about ''us'' than ebay.  we would no longer be economically viable.

microsoft?  that would be certain death for ebay.  history has shown they only do one thing well.  ebay and paypal are way outside of their wheelhouse.

by: sundance

Really???  No.  Google has enough problems without buying more.  Unless they dump all the eBay execs and take it back to what it was.  Auctions.  Fun stuff.  

by: Cyclestripper

The problem with ebay has been a broad misunderstanding of commerce, in general. Similar to Microsoft, as proven with the Windows 8 and Office 2010 design changes, there is a complete lack of identification with the user.

Amazon is guilty of the same thing. They become so fascinated with "relevance" search that search becomes irrelevant.

IMHO, it would be better for Walmart to acquire ebay that one of the tech giants but Walmart's issues with cost squeezing would perpetuate the same problems we see with current ebay management.

Long term? I expect that there will be more nitch players like Etsy. Ebay will loose all of it's individual sellers of new items to Amazon and the individual sellers of used items will take traditional jobs as the economy improves.

That will leave ebay as a shell of it's former self with nothing but low margin business, such as GSI, plus paypal. As ebay shrinks, so will paypal.

And, finally, nobody will care when ebay closes it's doors in 10 years or so.

by: ecommerceman

I believe that together they could possibly morph into a more powerful marketplace...uniting the experience, knowledge and history of eBay with the power of the most powerful search engine who has shopping built into the search.  My question is...How would this affect Amazon as a marketplace?  This would be an interesting battle....

by: PowerSeller2007

Having heard of all the suffering by small American sellers, Google and Microsoft has all the right to stop ebay.

Google and Microsoft SHOULD not buy ebay and rewards the tyrant JD.

by: Steevo

Google already has the domain name googleauctions.com, but they aren't doing anything with it.

If google did bring that site up it would cause ebay to melt down, let me tell you!  

There are a few things about google that are troubling, one is the weird corporate culture there.  

Things at google don't work the way they work at other businesses.  Some of that is very very odd.  

by: Rexford

eBay owed all of is early success to community.  A perfect ecosystem of buyers and sellers.  When you "disrupt" or poison the ecosystem, the ecosystem becomes a cesspool. Nothing thrives in a cesspool--on the contrary, it dies.

by: Patricia

@Rexford - favoring China is nothing new.  Meg poured $100 million down China's toilet to try to win them over.  When we were paying high listing fees chinese sellers were paying zero!  All under Meg's watch.

by: dsrtdwg1

Does no one remember?
http://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/abblog/blog.pl?/pl/2007/5
/1178289555.html

by: Steevo

One thing google can do, is drive traffic.  

If they were running a site to compete with ebay you can be sure there would be no problems with search visibility.

I'd sell there in a heartbeat.

by: Rexford

Patricia, I was not a Meg fan, and she handpicked Donahoe to be her successor, so I'm not surprised at all.

by: dkkdolls

I do not think Ebay would improve under Google, as the paid ad system pretty much ruined Google as a viable search engine. Ebay might lose more of the interesting and unusual collectibles listings that are fun to view and sometimes bid on. PayPal works better than Google Checkout or Google Wallet. Those systems are clunky to use. I know Google Checkout does not integrate very well with my Collectibles Online/Tias site, but PayPal does. Despite its problems PayPal does work out as the most bug free of all †he payment platforms, at least from my experience, though it is a pain to deal with the complaints process if someone in another country thinks a 1st Class Package Mail International parcel is too slow and causes a hold, as once happened around Christmas when everything was going slower from an overloaded mail system. Ebay could use new management that is more responsive to small sellers and it could do with removing final value fees on shipping and pushing free shipping so (free ain't free).

by: Digmen1

yes a good idea.

Because then in a couple of years Google would probably close it down like they have for so many other of their "products"

But seriously NO WAY.

by: Ming the Merciless

Sellers sometimes forget that Meg Whitman's concept of growth was to waste millions by buying non synergistic startups, stealing other people's software, raising fees, raising fees still more, and then raising fees again and again and again until she drove some sellers out of business.

Just ask Randy Smythe of ebay's then largest DVD seller, Glacier Bay.

It's unnecessary to reiterate what The Ho's concept of growth is.

In today's relentlessly greed and free stock options driven business environment, I doubt Google or Microsoft would be an improvement unless either would manage in an ethical and equitable manner.

Which I doubt. Most corporations cannot be trusted anymore to do the right thing for their customers, e.g., ebay is busy doing the wrong things for their customers (sellers) and catering to our growing criminal scam artist buyer base.

My vote would go to Warren Buffet. At least he tells the truth.

by: comet

Ummmmm--

NO

The worst of BOTH worlds.

Meg and The Ho are clones of each other---My how quickly we forget how MUCH we hated Meg!

In a few years--maybe less--some Chinese web site will purchase ebay for pennies on the dollar.

And then it will sell exclusively to the rising CHINESE MIDDLE CLASS.

The BIGGEST emerging market the universe has EVER seen.

We will have to come up with a different and American solution to our own problems.

Like I have said before--if each of US would COMMIT to list lets say 50 things on a DIFFERENT SITE--pick one--I think we could start something viable.  

But--which site would that BE?????