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To: j_b who wrote (2717)	12/22/1998 4:41:00 PM
From: sam	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4903

I'm not so sure that you're comparison is fair. EBAY never buys or even sees the merchandise it receives commissions on. ONSL's model is different. They buy the merchandise. And thus there margins are obviously much, much lower. Comparing EBAY and ONSL is really like the proverbial apples and oranges -- except, with the possible exception, of YHOO's ONSL person to person site -- which gets its revs from advertising (and not commissions) -- and thus has very high margins. Though I can understand why some are concerned that ONSL's sales figures seem high (compared to EBAY), but you must take those figures with the profit margin to get a full read on ONSL's profitability.

To: j_b who wrote (2717)	12/22/1998 5:08:00 PM
From: D.J.Smyth	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4903

j b <<I should just develop a standard answer to post whenever this comment comes up - ONSL's revenue includes both product they own and straight commissions. eBay is commission only. Both companies report gross merchandise sales on their sites. eBay merchandise sales are around 2 1/2 times those of ONSL. You either have to compare the gross merchandise sales (where eBay is significantly higher than ONSL) or you compare just the gross margins. eBay had a $6 million margin last quarter, around 3 times as high as ONSL. It doesn't matter how you look at it, eBay is currently a bigger and more profitable operation (above the line) than ONSL. >> you are correct. thanks for pointing that out. as you say, ONSL's revenue includes "product they own". the argument can be made, though, that since EBAY's current ONLY source of revenue is commissions earned, the only way EBAY will grow is to grow commissions on X sales - one category of listed revenue. ONSL can grow revenue with both "product owned sales" and "commissioned" sales. I say that only to point out that EBAY's cash on hand is $75 million, ONSL's, $54 million, only $20 million less than EBAY's. Of course, much of EBAY's cash, I believe, came from a much larger IPO than ONSL. ONSL had a significantly smaller IPO, yet, through a conversion offering at about $28 and product sales has been able to build a comparatively healthy cash position. I realize that some that the notion, mistaken or no, that EBAY can be a purely "cash cow" with no product owned. the article's implication was that UBID was larger than ONSL, and I take that would mean in both categories. It's possible they were including UBID's major stockholder in that comparison?