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eBay Rejects GameStop's $56B Takeover as Not Credible

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Re: eBay Rejects GameStop's $56B Takeover as Not Credible

#191

Post by fwipsy »

FireBeyond wrote: post #160
Aurornis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buy and sell through eBay about once a month and I agree. eBay isn't perfect but over several hundred transactions and a few disputes that were settled fairly I've had a good experience. I know it's possible to have a bad experience and I'm not discounting those stories, but it's not the standard eBay experience. GameStop was trying to do a Private Equity style takeover. Everyone hates it when PE companies do that,…

I've had two disputes that materially ignored the facts of the dispute, in one case where even the buyer said he didn't and wouldn't do as agreed, and still won, costing me $700+. You can't say "I've had a few disputes that were handled fairly, so when other people say there's weren't, that's not the standard eBay experience".

If getting scammed is the standard eBay seller experience, surely you'd have heard about it before deciding to sell? I've been selling on ebay for years and I've never had a dispute. Having very few, high value sales is sort of a red flag for scams. If you don't have a lot of prior positive feedback maybe that's why you lost your disputes?

Re: eBay Rejects GameStop's $56B Takeover as Not Credible

#192

Post by WJW »

semanticist wrote: post #122
jerf wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If eBay thought having storefronts would be advantageous, they would have them. It doesn't make a lot of sense for eBay to merge with Gamestop only for the combined entity to decide that the most sensible first thing to do is close all the Gamestop locations. The physical Gamestop locations are also horrifically overprovisioned to be an eBay storefront. Many companies have already experimented with things like "locke…

GameStop's idea behind using their physical locations isn't for ease of shipping so much as ease of verification. People buying brand-name stuff off eBay (and Vinted, etc) pay for verification services to make sure that it's real. The idea - which is the only good/sane part of this entire takeover proposal - is to have retail locations that do the verification in person instead of shipping items to a central location…

Wouldn't verification for almost anything beyond the extremely basic need specialized people? I don't think it's reasonable to train every Gamestop employee to be able to verify everything from fancy Swiss watches to brand name clothing to playing cards. At least if you do it in a central location you can have actual experts do the verification.

Re: eBay Rejects GameStop's $56B Takeover as Not Credible

#193

Post by WJW »

kotaKat wrote: post #21
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This movie isn't over yet. We'll have to wait and see if GameStop goes full 80's on them with a hostile takeover attempt.

Meanwhile they're now working on getting approval to dilute out another billion or so shares: https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001326380/0... "We are asking our stockholders to approve an amendment to our Third Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation, as amended by the Certificate of Amendment dated June 2, 2022 (the “Existing Charter”), to increase the number of authorized shares of our com…

I thought their stockholders were super into direct registration to trigger the "mother of all short squeezes" when (or so the conspiracy went anyway) all the evil hedge funds would have to buy back their alleged naked shorts for infinite money. That doesn't really play well with Gamestop putting 1.5 billion extra shares on the market, which is basically exactly the reverse of a short squeeze and would surely push down prices.

Or was this a 2022 thing and Gamestop investors have moved on from diamond handing?

Re: eBay Rejects GameStop's $56B Takeover as Not Credible

#194

Post by rtkwe »

xp84 wrote: post #183
rtkwe wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest headache has always been fraud, eBay gets if from both sides and it's a pretty intractable problem to solve as the middle man.

That's what those huge ~10% final value fees they charge are for. And other revenue such as sponsored listings (pay to boost your item in search results). As long as they keep the fraud volume below like 5% of sales, I feel like it's just a numbers game, where they just need to get as much sales onto their platform as possible to give them enough operating margin to cover their costs (including fraud) and provide pro…

Yeah my main point was it's a complete pain in the ass to deal with if you want to do it properly in a way that actually prevents fraud on either side. eBay has kind of just erred one side or the other for most of it's existence and right now the complaints are mostly from the seller side that I see.

Re: eBay Rejects GameStop's $56B Takeover as Not Credible

#196

Post by Aurornis »

FireBeyond wrote: post #160
Aurornis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buy and sell through eBay about once a month and I agree. eBay isn't perfect but over several hundred transactions and a few disputes that were settled fairly I've had a good experience. I know it's possible to have a bad experience and I'm not discounting those stories, but it's not the standard eBay experience. GameStop was trying to do a Private Equity style takeover. Everyone hates it when PE companies do that,…

I've had two disputes that materially ignored the facts of the dispute, in one case where even the buyer said he didn't and wouldn't do as agreed, and still won, costing me $700+. You can't say "I've had a few disputes that were handled fairly, so when other people say there's weren't, that's not the standard eBay experience".

> You can't say "I've had a few disputes that were handled fairly, so when other people say there's weren't, that's not the standard eBay experience"

I did not say that. I specifically said I know some people have bad experiences, but that I don't. Please don't fake-quote things that someone didn't say.

I acknowledge that some people have bad experiences and some people (like you) can be extra unlucky, but I wouldn't say that your bad experiences are the standard eBay experience. Logically, if everyone was losing money like that all over the platform nobody would be selling there any more.

Re: eBay Rejects GameStop's $56B Takeover as Not Credible

#197

Post by Aurornis »

rschneid wrote: post #176
Aurornis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buy and sell through eBay about once a month and I agree. eBay isn't perfect but over several hundred transactions and a few disputes that were settled fairly I've had a good experience. I know it's possible to have a bad experience and I'm not discounting those stories, but it's not the standard eBay experience. GameStop was trying to do a Private Equity style takeover. Everyone hates it when PE companies do that,…

You're grossly straw-manning a complex situation by reducing this deal to a 'Private Equity style takeover' that 'everyone hates'... If anyone is interested in learning more here's a great primary source interview with an ebay seller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1ij2nQymtA and a retrospective here for those without as time/interest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyS9Q-LnhPE I think it's good to let folks reach…

> If anyone is interested in learning more here's a great primary source interview with an ebay seller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1ij2nQymtA

This is an interview with the GameStop CEO

Of course he thinks the takeover is a good idea.

I guess the GameStop true believers are out coming out to astroturf this thread?

Re: eBay Rejects GameStop's $56B Takeover as Not Credible

#199

Post by burnte »

cryptoegorophy wrote: post #101
hx8 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. eBay has a strong brand, one of the oldest web brands. It should just continue doing what it's doing.

They probably should do more marketing.

They market pretty heavily in growth markets. They're really heavy in advertising in the UK and Europe. There's a lot of digital remarketing they do in the US.

Re: eBay Rejects GameStop's $56B Takeover as Not Credible

#200

Post by [deleted] »

semanticist wrote: post #122
jerf wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If eBay thought having storefronts would be advantageous, they would have them. It doesn't make a lot of sense for eBay to merge with Gamestop only for the combined entity to decide that the most sensible first thing to do is close all the Gamestop locations. The physical Gamestop locations are also horrifically overprovisioned to be an eBay storefront. Many companies have already experimented with things like "locke…

GameStop's idea behind using their physical locations isn't for ease of shipping so much as ease of verification. People buying brand-name stuff off eBay (and Vinted, etc) pay for verification services to make sure that it's real. The idea - which is the only good/sane part of this entire takeover proposal - is to have retail locations that do the verification in person instead of shipping items to a central location…

[deleted]
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