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Technology Stocks : eBay - Superb Internet Business Model -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JimNewby who wrote (319)	9/25/1998 2:52:00 PM
From: Don Wellington Jr.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7772

I have been watching the eBay situation for a time now. Unfortunately, I need to bailout of some bad stocks before reinvesting into another IPO issue. However, to the point of eBay investing in marketing; as a consultant to the computer and internet industries, I would strongly advise against any expensive "banner" ads or high priced partnerships with expenisve portals or websites. The reason is that those of us who are in tune with the Internet, as a primary source of information, commerce, entertainment, etc., know about the hot sites through extensive word of mouth, bulletins, e-mail, etc., and very seldom hit banners. Ebay's money would be better invested in the time consuming hours of spreading their URL throughout the search engines, multiplying their listing by page links, etc. This is "grunt" work, but can payoff bigtime with comparatively little investment. The emerging market, is the consumer who is only dabbling on the internet. This consumer needs to be pulled to a site from outside-the-internet contact. The current use of radio, seems to be working most economically. I find I even respond when I hear an interesting WebSite ad for something I need or am interested in, then I check it out. I have watched several companies spend too much, too soon on internet ads, with negligible results. There are also many traditional PR and exposure methods which would reach an eBay customer, just as ads for classified listings from Newspapers reach us. EBay has the advantage of entering the Public Offering domain with profitability, unlike most others in the Internet realm. Let's hope they don't blow that position. It's amazing to me that Amazon cannot make a current profit, although I have not studied their business plan.