Things have not been going too well lately for auction giant, eBay. A near-botched Skype acquisition, a stinging (and rather expensive $100 million plus) failure in China and Google’s willingness to sacrifice any semblance of profits are just some of the things that have have taken the air out of eBay’s stock.
The San Jose-based company has been getting-by via squeezing (and antagonizing) its merchants and end users. Against such a dismal backdrop, one has to applaud company’s decision to buy e-scalper, StubHub for around $310 million.
This is a deal that makes a lot of sense for eBay since it is a business that is parallel to its core auction business. It is also buying a start-up that is rumored to be doing about $100 million in sales.
The event ticket scalping (that’s exactly what it really is) is a business that is thriving on eBay as well as StubHub. And if you are a sports fanatic like yours truly, you are not going to give up StubHub anytime soon. Good call eBay.
5 comments so far
4:56 PM PT
StubHub acquired by eBay - you heard it here first… …
About 7 months ago I predicted that eBay would eventually buy StubHub, the wonderful ticket marketplace. Well - looks like the day has come and eBay has acquired StubHub for $310M. From TechCrunch:they are announcing the deal earlier than expected…
5:34 PM PT
oooh…good title. :-)
8:20 PM PT
well, the accurate interpretation of that headline would mean that they’re buying StubHub at a low price and can later sell to someone else for higher. hmmm…
7:48 AM PT
eBay getting into the ticket scalping business…
Looks like eBay is on the run a little. And rather than trying to invest in starting new units in foreign countries, they’re snapping up seemingly profitable companies. Om Malik is reporting that eBay has acquired e-scalper and now StubHub. …
12:00 PM PT
[...] giant had long complained about online ticket brokers, but perhaps eBay’s success after buying StubHub back a year ago, the grim performance of its online TicketExchange platform, and its [...]
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