An auction for the top auction site could be underway after GameStop announced a bid for eBay on Sunday night.
GameStop say they will cut costs at the online resale giant and give them a bricks-and-mortar network to work with, floating the prospect of significantly higher revenues at the auction site as a result. They are proposing to pay $55.5 billion for the company (more than its market capitalisation when the bid was announced) in cash and stocks.
GameStop sell games, consoles, trading cards and collectibles. Collectors of all sorts use eBay every day. Any merger of the two businesses would be the biggest business news in collectibles for decades.
Initial commentary from the Financial Times suggested some skepticism that the deal would go ahead.
If it does, it would create perhaps the biggest collecting business ever that would have enormous power in many collecting markets, which may concern some collectors, who will also hope any cost cutting doesn’t affect the customer experience at ebay.
