The first thing sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer. In 1995 Pierre Omidyar, the founder, listed the item to test the idea of an online auction. A bidding war ensued and the pointer was sold for the princely sum of $14.83. From that humble start eBay grew into a vast bazaar. By 2005 it was worth almost $80bn, about four times the value of rival Amazon. That shine slowly faded as its customers left for bigger rivals and niche marketplaces. But over the past few years eBay has mounted a surprising comeback.
The internet’s flea market is back—and GameStop wants to buy it (Getty Images)
Consider its results for the first quarter. Sales grew by 17% year on year, the fastest rate since 2012, bar the pandemic-era e-commerce frenzy. The number of buyers on eBay, which had been falling, has now stabilised at around 135m. Investors are impressed. eBay’s share price has jumped by over 130% since the start of 2024. So buzzy has it become that GameStop, a video-game retailer beloved of retail investors that has lately been expanding into collectibles, is now said to be plotting a takeover. How did eBay turn things around?
Its comeback started with new management. Six years ago Jamie Iannone, a former eBay manager who went on to work at Walmart, took charge. It was clear that eBay was in a fix. Market share was being lost to rivals including Amazon and Walmart, which offered countless products and used their logistics networks to deliver them quickly, along with niche second-hand markets, such as the RealReal, a fashion-resale platform, and StockX, a marketplace for trainers.
Mr Iannone’s solution was to focus on what he calls the “heritage of eBay”, such as used, refurbished and out-of-season goods. That meant prioritising a small number of “focus categories”, including collectibles, fashion and car parts, which account for a third of the total value of goods sold on the platform. In these areas management worked to improve customer trust. Learning from rivals such as the RealReal, it rolled out ways of authenticating valuable goods. A set of Pokémon cards or a Gucci handbag can first be shipped to one of eBay’s experts to verify that it is real. Another example is a scheme which ensures that certain auto parts will fit a buyer’s car. Some refurbished goods now come with warranties.
eBay plans to boost its focus categories with acquisitions. In 2024 it bought Goldin, a marketplace for collectibles. The following year it snapped up Caramel, a car-selling platform. In February it acquired Depop, a second-hand marketplace, from Etsy.
Another improvement is making buying and selling easier. Fees paid by sellers for individuals have been removed in Britain and Germany. Sellers rave about eBay’s international shipping services, which allows them to send foreign-bound packages to the marketplace, which takes care of the rest, including customs forms and tariffs. (The buyer typically picks up the tab.) Artificial-intelligence tools help sellers instantly create a listing for half-forgotten items dredged up from the back of a cupboard. In the world of trading cards, eBay has made transactions even simpler. Expensive cards can be stored in an eBay-run, climate-controlled vault in Delaware, so they can be exchanged without buyers taking physical delivery.
To help fund all this, Mr Iannone has been trimming costs across the business. In February eBay said that it would lay off 800 staff, equivalent to 6% of its workforce.
The turnaround has benefited from factors outside the company’s control. A boom in the trading-card market, thanks in part to pandemic-era stimulus cheques, has endured. Demand for second-hand clothing is roaring, too, especially among Gen Z. Geopolitical uncertainty has sent the price of gold and silver rocketing, helping sales of bullion and collectible coins.
Even so, eBay’s revival is impressive. Michael Morton of MoffettNathanson, a research firm, notes that online marketplaces are particularly hard to turn around: “When you start losing buyers, vendors look for other places to sell.” So-called “network effects” turn negative.
Ryan Cohen, GameStop’s boss, has had a harder time reversing the fortunes of his company. Its revenue declined by 14% year on year in its most recent quarter, as the rise of e-commerce has continued to erode its business. Mr Cohen may hope that bringing the businesses together would give GameStop a speedy way to expand its online presence while providing eBay with a retail footprint to lure in passers-by and act as a distribution network. But such a deal would be difficult to pull off: eBay is now valued at $46bn, around four times as much as GameStop, meaning piles of debt would be required. If Mr Cohen is shopping for a bargain, he will have to look elsewhere.
