The Inevitable Demise of eBay....

[jb217676]

I agree with JP. Ebay should only have auctions. Here's to Larry, keepin' ebay alive with his auctions!

[HRBAKER]

I think that a lot of people don't want to sell in a perceived down market for more "common" pre-war items like T206s. Plus ebay has made it economical for sellers to clutter the listings with all of the "store" or fixed-price inventory and they get lost. I think I can actually see some dust starting to accumulate on some of Buy It Nows, they have been on there so long.

I would be willing to bet that I spend 25% of the time trolling/searching ebay that I did 2-3 years ago.

[JP]

The 200 T-206s I sold in auctions there last month did fine....I think it'd be a whole different story if they were for sale now. BST only for me for as long as I can take it.

[mcap100176]

Ebay isn't going anywhere. While this niche baseball card market might not be as good as it once was, the company is making money. Both, as it seems on its auction/buying business and then on its PayPal holding.

Just read the first two pages of the below.....

http://files.shareholder.com/downloa...ngsRelease.pdf

[JP]

I may be reading it wrong, but it looks like their profit in 2008 was $1.8 billion and in 2009 was $2.4 billion, but $1.4 billion of that 2009 profit was the one-time sale of Skype. That means that their auction income dropped by 50%? And that's with fees being raised?

[T206DK]

check the numbers on Ebay again.....They are not really making money. Some of those financial analysts on CNBC don't think Ebay will be around much longer in it's current form either. I distinctly remeber them using the term :jump ship: when they talked about former CEO Meg Whitman's decsion to leave the company along with several other executives. The guys on CNBC basically said she didn't want to be around when everything comes crashing down. As I have said before, if one valid competitor comes along to draw any amount of revenue away from them , they will feel it immediately and being that they are very reactionary, who knows what they will come up with next. Another new user agreement ? More new seller rules and regulations ?
I believe it will eventually be a buy it now shopping mart online for those who have no other outlet to sell from. Now the SMR has supplanted Beckett for many of these guys. My brother and I went to the Local monthly show in dayton on saturday. It was depressing. in the whole auditorium we found only 6 cards that dated pre-war. The dealers were using the SMR to price ungraded material also which I laughed at. Really, I laughed at one guy when a kid came up to buy a $5 card and the dealer whipped out his SMR and said..."it says here it's worth $21". I just wanted to look at the guy and say in my best Spicolli voice " You dick"

[lharri3600]

thank you thank you thank you

Originally Posted by jb217676

I agree with JP. Ebay should only have auctions. Here's to Larry, keepin' ebay alive with his auctions!

[rdwyer]

If eBay sold only BIN's, their profit would drop 99%.

[drc]

Perhaps they could completely separate the auctions and sales, and not intermingle them.

[Shouldabeena10]

How in the world could a company that basically manufactures nothing, produces nothing, and delivers nothing, run their business into the ground so badly?

The "eBay system" has got to be 99% automated, so outside of management you're basically just employing tech's, R & D, marketing, and some customer service reps to keep the thing running.

Just thinking about the millions of auctions running on eBay every day, 24/7, and the % of money they make off of all their fees ... you'd think it wouldn't be possible to sink that ship. Unintentionally, at least.

[drc]

I describe eBay's recent ways as follows: They had the world's best and biggest auction house, so they decided to change that.

[rdixon1208]

The internet (primarily ebay) has made collecting so much easier. Many long-term collectors have posted about how much easier it is to find cards. I wonder if this easy access has led to more and more people collecting pre-war over the last few years...and more and more peolple holding their cards (less auctions) while they build there collections.

[slidekellyslide]

I'm liking the new free listing format.. List something for .99 cents and it's a free listing..if it sells ebay takes 10%, if it doesn't sell then I'm out nothing. I have a ton of items like postcards, ephemera and photos that I would never list if they didn't have free listings like this. That may clog up some categories, but it shouldn't bother those that do specific searches. Last night I had 4 stereoview cards end at about $1,000 that I would have been happy if they'd sold for $10 each...I had no clue they were worth that much and I never would have wasted the listing fee to try them at $9.99 each. The downside to listing .99 cent items though is that I had a postcard sell for the opening bid and I have to ship it to the Netherlands.