To: WMG who wrote (619 ) 11/2/1998 4:24:00 AM From: Doug Fowler Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 7772
First, Barron's has been bearish about the overall market since the Dow crossed 4000. Sure, the barriers to entry for online auctions are relatively small. But, what is a huge barrier to success, is a large volume of buyers and sellers. Right now, nobody else comes even REMOTELY close to the combination found on eBay. Yahoo Auctions are currently a big joke. Nobody (well, almost nobody) is bidding/buying. All other things equal, all the sellers on eBay would move to Yahoo in a minute, because Yahoo is FREE. But all other things are NOT equal. With eBay, a seller gets a lot more traffic (a lot more people looking at his/her auction), and a lot more bidding. The seller gets a better price, such that even when you subtract the eBay fees, the seller still makes more money than selling it through the trafficless Yahoo Auctions. Would you rather pay $500 a month rent to be in a mall where you had foot traffic of 1000 potential buyers a day, or would you rather get rent for FREE, and foot traffic of 10 people per day? That is the competitive advantage of eBay. Until such times as the competitors can change that dynamic, eBay will dominate. And eBay's margins will remain high until then. And the longer Yahoo screws around and doesn't get inventive in bringing in BOTH quality buyers and sellers, the harder it will be for them to "catch up" to eBay. Yahoo seems to think all they have to do is put a little button on their home page, and offer auctions for free. That is the sum total of their strategy for beating eBay. eBay CAN be beaten, but so far, nobody is employing the right strategy. Hint: What is BETTER than free? I will agree with you that eBay stock os overvalued right now, but I would contend that Onsale stock is even more overvalued, and Yahoo stock is certainly not cheap.