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Technology Stocks : eBay - Superb Internet Business Model

EBAY 85.36

+1.1%

Dec 12 9:30 AM EST

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To: Terr who wrote (5369)	9/17/1999 2:01:00 AM
From: Doug Fowler	Read Replies (3) of 7772

Personally, I don't think this will have ANY measurable impact on eBay's business. Anybody who wants to seriously compete with eBay must do the following: 1. Pay sellers to list. 2. Pay buyers to bid. 3. Spend lots of money to attract sellers and buyers. This must be done to attract the "critical mass" of buyers and sellers. I know this sounds crazy. However, let's assume X.COM pays sellers $1 to list items of at least $10 in value. They limit sellers to 100 items a month. They pay bidders 10 cents for each bid, up to $25 a month. To get 5 million items listed, X.COM pays $5M. Assuming 10 bids on each item, another $5M. Maybe X.COM pays an extra dollar to the seller if the item sells and rebates the high bidder a dollar or two. Let's say X.COM spends an additional $100M over the course of 6 months, to advertise online, in print, on radio and television. Let's say they spend another $50M on infrastructure. That is really not that much money when you consider that eBay's stock market cap is $20B. Everybody knows that it the combination of buyers and sellers that makes eBay popular. But nobody else seems serious about making the investment necessary to reach critical mass. Amazon is currently offering 10 cent auctions for the rest of the year. Guess what? They are still stuck at around 100,000 auctions. Yahoo has the auction count, but it doesn't have the buyers. AuctionUniverse is a joke. Lycos is a joke. TheGlobe.Com is a joke. ZDNET and CNET at least try to address a specific niche (technology), but eBay still far exceeds their auction counts in its own technology areas. These other auctions are simply not serious. Combining a network to produce 70,000 auctions is NOTHING compared to eBay. Maybe if they got Amazon and Yahoo to go along, they would have a better chance.

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