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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio candidates - Moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tinkershaw who wrote (989)	6/27/2004 7:08:55 AM
From: John Carragher	Respond to of 2955

ebay mentioned that they est. 500,000 independent businesses now operating on ebay. These are people who full time now trade on ebay , wonder if that is in the jobs report. ebay now taking over the pawn shop businesses. Many of these businesses now set up shop on ebay to take your mdse. set it up for spread on ebay, picture, handle transactions, shipping, and take a 15/20% fee out of the sale. This is another whole new way to clean out your garage etc. These outlets going up in locations all over the country. ebay sells a car every 60 seconds. amazing.

To: tinkershaw who wrote (989)	6/27/2004 10:01:25 AM
From: Jim Mullens	Respond to of 2955

Tinker, Re: Ebay and “high” switching costs. What are the transaction costs, percentage-wise, on EBay vs it’s competition? Is there much room for the competition to compete on price alone?

To: tinkershaw who wrote (989)	6/27/2004 1:26:37 PM
From: Thomas Mercer-Hursh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2955

I'm not sure that I get your analysis of EBay. Their auction software may be proprietary to them, but it is not clear to me that their software is so advanced over other auction software that it constitutes any kind of technological gap. And, how is it open unless other software developers are connecting to it ... linking to the site doesn't constitute an open architecture. It seems to me that what EBay has done is to beat other people to the mark with a workable offering, do a good job of enhancing and expanding on that early lead, and now has the advantage of market dominance. There is no significant technological hold on that market dominance, merely the hold that, if one wants to put one's merchandise in front of the largest number of people, they are the way to do it.