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0 pointsrtkwe1mo ago0 comments

I've yet to see a convincing vision of what an eBay physical store looks like that doesn't kind of boil down to a UPS store. The vast majority of their business comes from 3rd party listings and the only real stock they have and sell are in the eBay refurbished line. I'm really not convinced of what a successful eBay store would even be there for.

I've seen some say for authentication but staffing employees able to perform that authentication at even a fraction of existing GameStop stores would be extremely expensive (unless it's terrible authentication) so it again devolves to basically being a UPS store but for eBay shipping items out to be authenticated. Similar to what GameStop does with Pokemon cards and PSA grading except you can't really slab a Rolex or handbag so the authentication is only good so long as the good remains in the hands of the authenticator.

The only small service I think they could offer is a way for sellers to certify what's being shipped to avoid contests, but having that in every GameStop store is also very expensive for a cost they currently just shift onto sellers by siding with the customer. eBay could easily implement that if they wanted by partnering with UPS stores or a program where sellers video the packing or something.

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colechristensen1mo ago· 1 in thread

>I've yet to see a convincing vision of what an eBay physical store looks like that doesn't kind of boil down to a UPS store.

Pawn shop for nerds/the middle class.

They could build AI to help authentication and just identifying sellers would help tremendously with fraud.

rtkweOP1mo ago

> Pawn shop for nerds/the middle class.

That's kind of but not really what GameStop was before digital games took over and isn't what eBay is. A majority of Pawn Shop business is in the name pawns and neither eBay nor GameStop have ever done.

> They could build AI to help authentication and just identifying sellers would help tremendously with fraud.

That's a huge step beyond reasonable, there have been billions spent on the current AIs and none of them are up to the task of telling a good fake from a real item. Maybe one day but that's ages away.

And fraud doesn't just happen on the seller side, a big headache for sellers is buyer fraud where they'll claim the item is wrong/broken and there's almost no recourse for sellers to prove that's incorrect. eBay could just as easily partner with UPS stores to implement seller and buyer authentication anyways there's not a huge benefit to GameStop in particular being the partner there. It's always been an option and they haven't taken it.

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