{"id":647106,"date":"2026-05-04T12:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T12:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/647106\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T12:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T12:09:10","slug":"gamestop-makes-daring-bid-for-ebay-hoping-to-rival-amazon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/647106\/","title":{"rendered":"GameStop makes daring bid for eBay, hoping to rival Amazon"},"content":{"rendered":"

London\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\n <\/p>\n

\n GameStop has offered to buy ecommerce giant eBay for $55.5 billion, a tie-up that the video game retailer\u2019s boss believes could produce a \u201clegit competitor\u201d to Amazon.\n <\/p>\n

\n The offer comes amid something of a revival at eBay<\/a>, which has pushed to reinvent itself in the face of rising competition from the likes of Walmart, Amazon, Shein and Facebook Marketplace.\n <\/p>\n

\n GameStop \u2014 which became a household name during the meme stock craze of 2021 \u2014 has offered $125 per share for eBay, half in cash and half in stock, the company announced<\/a> Sunday. That represents a 46% premium to eBay\u2019s closing share price on February 4, the day GameStop started building a 5% stake in the company.\n <\/p>\n

\n It\u2019s an audacious bid, targeting a business nearly four times its size. As of Friday, GameStop was worth $11.9 billion, while eBay was valued at $46.2 billion, according to FactSet data. eBay\u2019s shares were up 9% in premarket trading, while GameStop\u2019s shares pointed to a sharply weaker open after gaining 6.3% on Friday.\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n In a letter<\/a> to the chair of eBay, GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen said the company would cut costs at eBay and make it more profitable. He also sees benefits in combining GameStop\u2019s brick-and-mortar stores with eBay\u2019s online presence. \u201cGameStop\u2019s ~1,600 US locations give eBay a national network for authentication, intake, fulfillment, and live commerce,\u201d he noted.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt could be a legit competitor to Amazon,\u201d Cohen said about eBay in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. He said he believed eBay should be doing more around live commerce, where brands sell directly to shoppers via real-time video streams, the Journal reported.\n <\/p>\n

\n In his letter, Cohen said he would serve as the chief executive of the combined company. GameStop plans to fund the buyout through cash and debt, which includes a commitment from TD Securities for up to $20 billion.\n <\/p>\n

\n Launched in 1995, eBay remains among the top US retail e-commerce sites, but has lost market share as the field has widened, according to Emarketer, a market research company.\n <\/p>\n

\n The company got a boost from the Covid-19 pandemic and has tried to build on that momentum by investing in artificial intelligence, a decision that has endeared it to shareholders. eBay\u2019s share price is up around 52% over the past year, and the stock has gained 188% since the start of 2020.\n <\/p>\n

\n In February, the company agreed to buy British online clothing resale platform Depop from Etsy for $1.2 billion. UK competition regulators have yet to approve the deal.\n <\/p>\n

\n Last week, eBay reported<\/a> a 19% increase in first-quarter revenue. It said that its gross merchandise volume, or the total value of all transactions between users, jumped 18% to $22.2 billion.\n <\/p>\n

\n GameStop shot to fame five years ago during the meme-stock craze<\/a>, when an army of retail investors piled into the stock, sending its value soaring, in an attempt to squeeze professional traders who were betting that the company\u2019s share price would fall.\n <\/p>\n

\n The company\u2019s brick-and-mortar business has struggled against a shift among its customers to online streaming and digital downloads. Cohen has led GameStop since January 2021. During his tenure, the company has swung from a $381 million net loss in 2021 to $418 million of net income in its latest financial year, ended January 31.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"London\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 GameStop has offered to buy ecommerce giant eBay for $55.5 billion, a tie-up that the video game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48],"class_list":["post-647106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}