The Inevitable Demise of eBay....

[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"