Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 731 posts

Re: GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

#361

Post by turtlesdown11 »

vasco wrote: post #3

The Gamestop CEO is an interesting character, he grew Chewy and sold it, did a massive play on Apple stock during the pandemic and used that to buy a 9% stake in Gamestop over time, rode the hype to accumulate $9B while turning the company around and closing stores that weren't profitable and making it a money making budiness again. And now they already own 5% of eBay on top. Along the way he says some ridiculous Tru…

> turning the company around

The revenue for Gamestop continues to decline, even if they are "profitable". The annual decrease in revenue continues. It's a dying business, it hasn't been turned around. The most charitable comment you can make about the company is that they've shrunk the business to align with their revenue decline.

https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/gme/revenue/

Re: GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

#362

Post by dpoloncsak »

unixhero wrote: post #223
dpoloncsak wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is what they call the 'Texas Two-Step'

Sure it is not a Kansas City shuffle?

pretty sure you're just making a joke but the specific legislation exploited here is only present in Texas and Delaware iirc. Not a lawyer though

Re: GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

#364

Post by notahacker »

59percentmore wrote: post #318
DSMan195276 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well let's be clear, the "trade-in anything" day was a fancy discount day. They gave everybody $5 for whatever they brought in, online you can read from employees that they just donated or threw it all away, no attempt to actually keep any of it to sell. That said IMO the biggest difference in the two situations you're describing is that EBay is not in the business of buying the items to then sell later, they just fa…

Can you tell me where your local eBay fulfillment center is? I can tell you where my local Gamestop is (no, not that one, the other one).

I can't tell you where the nearest GameStop is because afaik they don't have any locations in my country. Can find half a dozen convenience stores that will handle eBay (or Amazon) goods for me within walking distance.

Re: GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

#365

Post by crazygringo »

shmatt wrote: post #263
giancarlostoro wrote: post #240

The original shorting of GameStop back in 2021 gave them a bit of a boost back into the green. While people were doing the GME to the moon, GameStop made more shares to sell, and paid off a bit of its debts, I think it made about a billion dollars in profit, they're still struggling, but it helped prolong their life. A friend of mine also pointed out and this made it click for me that it makes 100% sense, GameStop is…

eBay is dying, new competitors are being created constantly, and the big ones like Poshmark are getting more North American buyers and sellers. eBay has barely grown since their post covid slump Maybe eBay survives as an international site but even at that point, with $20B in debt this will just follow the regular PE playbook of shutting down after many layoffs and pivots The entire concept of, "I have $1,000 in the…

I mean I don't love eBay, but it's certainly not dying, where did you get that idea? Its revenue has continued to grow every year post-COVID, and competitors all face the central challenge of eBay's network effect.

It's not experience massive growth but that's because it's a pretty mature market by this point. People who want to sell their stuff already use eBay. It works. It's mature.

Re: GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

#366

Post by colechristensen »

bhouston wrote: post #209
sheepscreek wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking a $20b loan from TD Bank + sitting on $9b CASH + GameStop stock for the rest. They’ve made an interesting proposal around using 1600 GameStop locations for fulfilment. Smart if they can make it work. Update: Numbers still don’t add to $55b - I think there’s a $14b shortfall. Not sure about how they are planning to fund that.

> They’ve made an interesting proposal around using 1600 GameStop locations for fulfilment. Is that really an advantage? Fulfilment is always handled by a lot of places for the big e-retailers for returns, which is similar to what eBay needs for sellers. How much does Staples charge for its Amazon return fulfillment where you don't even need to wrap up the item? It is really popular: https://www.staples.ca/a/learn/am…

>Is that really an advantage? Fulfilment is always handled by a lot of places for the big e-retailers for returns, which is similar to what eBay needs for sellers.

I think the advantage is going to be "bring your junk to GameStop and an employee will put it up for sale and handle shipping"

You'd get considerably more trust buying something on ebay that at least some teenager looked at and verified was real and powered on, etc.

Re: GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

#367

Post by ineedasername »

mapt wrote: post #56
cyanydeez wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the only benefit I can see is some kind of eBay pick up and verification scheme where sellers use the gamestop locations to send their products and buyers go theere to pick it up. That would basically create a "this is garbage feedback" that could cleanup some of ebay's long standing problems in trust.

While this seems like the perfect synergy with a company that has too many branches and not enough business, those branches are also tiny. I'd bet employees are not enthusiastic about becoming UPS. Becoming Radio Shack / Microcenter, as far as 3D Printing and DIY electronics, seems like it intersects with their target audience more, but they're also probably pretty short on space for that.

employees are not enthusiastic about becoming ups

Employee enthusiasm isn’t really much of a factor. For better or worse, in the event of significant change of the brick & mortar day to day operations then employee continuity & institutional knowledge is even less of an actual strategic asset than the minimal treatment it already gets in consideration.

Re: GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

#368

Post by Hilliard_Ohiooo »

turtlesdown11 wrote: post #355
giancarlostoro wrote: post #240

The original shorting of GameStop back in 2021 gave them a bit of a boost back into the green. While people were doing the GME to the moon, GameStop made more shares to sell, and paid off a bit of its debts, I think it made about a billion dollars in profit, they're still struggling, but it helped prolong their life. A friend of mine also pointed out and this made it click for me that it makes 100% sense, GameStop is…

> I could see this working out decently, assuming the CEO of GameStop doesn't mess it up completely. So far he's failed to improve Gamestop's core business, which is still in decline, even with the memestock cash gusher. No one goes into Gamestop anymore, and they won't start because of eBay.

Just bought a used switch there yesterday, 2 guys are selling or trading some kind of game card, kid and his dad getting a PS4... Like you say, no one goes to game stop anymore, it's too crowded ;)

Re: GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

#369

Post by testudovictoria »

octaane wrote: post #301

Long-time ebay seller here. I'm seeing comments floating towards the top that are essentially positing that the physical GameStop locations can be used as hubs where people can buy or sell their stuff in general (especially items that are 'pick-up only'). A pawn shop, basically. Thing is, GameStop is, well, for videogames and videogame paraphernalia. It's not a general store. Doing this would turn them into a thrift…

I think a lot of people are missing that eBay bought TCG Player back in 2022. This would fold the TCG Player brand into GameStop. Many (most?) local game stores list their inventory on TCG Player. In addition to the physical stores themselves, GameStop would have their hand in nearly every digital trading card transaction. GameStop would own the TGC Player warehouses and inventory.

Re: GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay

#370

Post by crazygringo »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #240

The original shorting of GameStop back in 2021 gave them a bit of a boost back into the green. While people were doing the GME to the moon, GameStop made more shares to sell, and paid off a bit of its debts, I think it made about a billion dollars in profit, they're still struggling, but it helped prolong their life. A friend of mine also pointed out and this made it click for me that it makes 100% sense, GameStop is…

> GameStop is setup as a legal pawnshop in every state. So a pawnshop buying out eBay makes insane sense.

It doesn't though. eBay could easily set itself up as a legal pawnshop in every state if it wanted to. It doesn't because there's no advantage to doing so.

There are already third-party sellers in many areas who will take your physical merchandise and sell it on eBay in exchange for a cut. eBay doesn't need to enter that market, it's simply not profitable enough.

Post reply on HN