So you went online and bought a ticket for an event at a venue you’ve
never been to before. Sure, you looked at a color-coded map of the
stadium, concert hall, or theater online you’re visiting, but we all
know you won’t really know what you got until show up the day of the
event.
Today, eBay can relate. Yesterday, eBay announced it
agreed to pay an estimated $310 million for StubHub, the San
Francisco-based online marketplace for tickets launched in 2000.
“It’s a perfect complement to eBay’s tickets business,” eBay North
America Marketplaces president Bill Cobb said in a statement.
But only today will the company take a seat as the new owner of the
once privately held firm and finds out what it really got.
So what’s the verdict? Does eBay have a pillar in its face or does
its new property provide a clear line of sight? What, exactly, is
eBay getting in the mail?
At the time of writing, eBay’s stock had moved up nearly 4 percent on
the day and early analysis suggests that the company bought a helpful
complement to its growing ticket business.
“Stubhub has proven to be a leader and its certainly an augmentation
for eBay,” JupiterResearch’s senior analyst for the retail industry
Patti Freeman Evans told internetnews.com. Evans said that
after integration, Stubhub’s business should improve under eBay’s
watch. She said eBay’s marketing expertise will bring new traffic and
its technical expertise will improve the shopping experience for users.
The flood of eBay cash and knowledge is bad news for some of
Stubhub’s current rivals. “For the other, independent secondary
market ticket sellers, this will be a challenge,” Evans said.
IAC/InterActivCorp property and market leader Ticketmaster.com need
not worry, however. Ticketmaster has long established relationships
with the venues themselves, Evans said, and that gives it a huge
advantage in terms of the primary marketplace.
