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

To: James1000 who wrote (2742)	4/20/1999 10:22:00 PM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 7772

Auction action: York might not like eBay, but Jacob does. He didn't buy the stock in the IPO, fearing rivals like Yahoo! and Excite would undercut its auction business; eBay charges a seller premium and they don't. "Without that charge, they wouldn't be profitable," he notes. "When we became convinced eBay's model would hold, we became shareholders." Citing strong margins and plenty of room for expansion, Jacob expects revenues to surge from less than $50 million last year to more than $1 billion within four years. "We think earnings growth could easily double to triple within the next few years," he says. From MSN Investor column on internet funds.

To: James1000 who wrote (2742)	4/20/1999 10:47:00 PM
From: Doug Fowler	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7772

James: As a user, I know eBay like the back of my hand. I have been using it for two years, as both a buyer and as a seller. My feedback rating is well over 100. I am very well aware of eBay's star system, but you don't see this on the page listings/headers, only once you have already clicked on the item to get a detailed description. Placing it on the listing page would allow people to know ahead of time whether they are dealing with a reputable seller. As far as your statements about eBays profit margin: eBay has a very high gross margin, almost 90 percent. The reason eBay is showing smaller net margins is because they are spending to promote the service to make sure they remain the leader. They WILL remain the leader, and Amazon will have to settle for a very distant runner-up, if Amazon even sticks with the auction business. Also, eBay's revenue will be much higher in 2003 than $400M. It will hit $200M during 1999 and at least double in 2000. Sure, we all like to see eBay trading at 1/10th its current value. Certainly, the stock prices in a lot of very good news. And the first of that very good news will be when they report for the latest quarter (next week?) and have a sequential percentage revenue increase that puts Yahoo and Amazon to shame. --Doug