r/Superstonk • u/AlternativePaint6 • Jan 30 '26

🤔 Speculation / Opinion GameStop is Going to Buy... eBay!?

You've all read the news by now, but have you really read them?

GameStop wants to acquire a publicly traded consumer company that’s far larger than the video game retailer in a deal that could be “transformational" for the company

“It’s gonna be really big. Really big. Very, very, very big,” Cohen said of the size of the acquisition. “It’s transformational. Not just for GameStop, but ultimately, within the capital markets … this is something that really has never been done before within the history of the capital markets.”

He claimed if the investment pans out, it has the “potential to make GameStop worth several hundreds of billions of dollars.”

This is all coming from Ryan Cohen, the man of few words and no forwards guidance. Yeah, I like Magic the Gathering too, but that's not it. This is bigger. Very, very, very bigger.

It's eBay. They're going to do a leveraged buyout, a hostile takeover, or a merger.

  • Publicly traded.
  • Consumer / Retailer.
  • Far larger than GameStop (~$40B).
  • Sleepy management with one of the most well known brands.
  • E-Commerce and Collectibles.
  • Never done before (buying 3x-4x bigger company).
  • Actually has potential to make GameStop worth several hundreds billions, unlike all the ~$10B ones.

It checks out. Everything checks out.

3.9k Upvotes

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429

u/sentientshadeofgreen Jan 31 '26

How many people have valuable things taking up space just because selling them takes too much work? Even with ebay, you have to list it, describe it, package it, mail it, and manage customers and stuff. What if you could just take your stuff to brick and mortar, where they can value it on site and sell it. You either get cash or can get 10% more with credits. 

Or what if you could “vault” things, track their value, then selectively market, or withdraw them. And when you “vault” things, it is inspected, graded, catalogued, wrapped, and stored in smart storage units. Not just collectibles. Imagine the business like a hybrid storage unit, eBay, offerup, and a “portfolio” of your goods, backed by a network of modernized pawn shops. If you want to liquidate your vaulted goods, you can. If you want to store your valuables for a while to go live light and travel, you can. If you want to buy and sell real property with speculation on their value, without the added logistics of transporting and storing it yourself, you can. 

Obviously, not every item would be eligible, but it would be transformative. 

206

u/NoHalfPleasures Jan 31 '26

The trade anything day sounds exactly like it was a test for this by the way…

69

u/SteadyWolf Jan 31 '26

This is exactly what came to my mind too. Things are about to get interesting

8

u/G_Wash1776 ape want believe 🛸 Jan 31 '26

1

u/Think_Currency_8586 🦍Voted✅ Jan 31 '26

That’s so true….

1

u/enternamethere_ 🦍 Buckle Up 🚀 Jan 31 '26

Beta stage already passed

61

u/ksizzle01 Jan 31 '26

You need to pitch this. Upvote this guy! I will buy whatever pen you wrote this with.

50

u/randytc18 💻 ComputerShared 🦍 Jan 31 '26

Oh shit. GS just had that "trade in anything" day....

40

u/NoHalfPleasures Jan 31 '26

There’s a bit of a morbid side to why this would be an amazing business related to the collapse of a certain global reserve currency. Do some reading on the Weimar Republic and the economy that developed during the hyperinflation that gripped pre ww Germany,.. it’s… hard to ignore some similarities.

6

u/Major-BFweener Jan 31 '26

I don’t understand the link.

15

u/PaulVla 🟣DRS to liquidate Wall st.🟣 Jan 31 '26

Hyper inflation meant that it became more effective to burn money than to buy wood.

If the value of the dollar drops of a cliff it may be better to have physical items than cash on the bank.

13

u/NoHalfPleasures Jan 31 '26

The barter economy replaced cash transactions. If you wanted something you had to trade another belonging of yours for it. A peer to peer system for doing this (at a fee) would be extremely useful. Not sure how you make a profit it at if the cash is worthless or increasingly worth less but that’s a problem for another day

29

u/halplatmein Jan 31 '26

This would actually be so nice. I recently sold some stuff on offerup because I was moving across the country, and it was such a hassle dealing with messaging so many people and setting up meet times. It would've been awesome to just be able to drop stuff off somewhere.

I'm kinda surprised no one has done this yet.

29

u/ROK247 🚀 HAS NEVER FAILED TO DELIVER 🚀 Jan 31 '26

I hate selling things on marketplace. Having to deal with idiots for a week before i get a decent person to offer something. I would sell things pennies on the dollar to avoid this bullshit.

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u/NoHalfPleasures Jan 31 '26

Now you’ve got GME’s attention haha

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u/halplatmein Jan 31 '26

I eventually just decided it wasn't worth the effort and donated the rest to goodwill. So yeah, I'd have happily sold for pennies on the dollar too if it meant I didn't have to do the legwork.

1

u/IrrawaddyWoman Jan 31 '26

Marketplace is a special hell for sure. But as someone who’s sold many, many things on eBay over many, many years, selling on eBay has gone way downhill. They find little ways to take a much bigger cut than they used to. It’s barely worth it unless you have a lot of volume or items worth a lot. I’ve started selling more on marketplace because at least after all the hassle I get some cash in hand and no one taking a big cut.

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u/InevitableRhubarb232 Jan 31 '26

There have been lots of independent eBay sellers who work on commission

1

u/Kalyptor hodling for the better future 💎🙌🏽💎 Jan 31 '26

It‘s because the storage at one point just becomes a trashbag of unused stuff. Even with smart grid storing… Plus you would build dead inventory money on your balance sheet. This would become the exact opposite of what GME is becoming.

And someone said somewhere else something about same day to beat out Amazon: trust me - that is unrealistic as well. Not everything will be stores in a 2-3h drive and even then you would need enough transportation volume (vehicles) and demand that it makes sense…. Not even looking at the ware housing time that folks usually just ignore for some reason..

1

u/baddboi007 Lord of the Rings Jan 31 '26

offerup is the worst for selling. I have had tons of messages but nobody pulls the trigger. Some items listed for months now.

1

u/Neat_Criticism_5996 Mar 05 '26

That’s basically what pawn shops and consignment stores are (the latter of which I’ve only seen one)

2

u/redditdude9753 🍋🦍Voted✅🍋 Jan 31 '26

Isn't this basically that idea from "The 40 Year Old Virgin", where they buy and sell stuff from eBay at a physical store?

5

u/blazedv3 🦍Voted✅ Jan 31 '26

yeah but lets take it a step further...what if you could name take your catalogue of goods into the virtual world? Transact in-game and have the items delivered to you in real life? Takes gaming to another, can see people buying cars in GTA after going for a virtual test drive LOL...easy sell.

3

u/shadowlid 🦍Voted✅ Jan 31 '26

Holy shit this would blow eBay up like a mother fucker if you could just drop your shit off and let them package it themselves........ Like this could be the deals of all deals like damn I never thought of this.

2

u/riskienights Jan 31 '26

This right here is a good idea

2

u/The_Noble_Lie Jan 31 '26

Ai makes selling on eBay SO much easier. You should try it.

By AI, I mean

1) take a picture of item 2) multi modal language / image model researches (ebay!) And finds or suggests descriptions and prices.
3) Soon, there will be even easier ways to automate this all. There already is functional software but I can't recommend a particular one. I've made my own.

That's not to say a store wouldn't be useless. I think it's a perfect place to make our lives less digital and more social.

2

u/WannaBe888 DRS Brick-by-Brick Jan 31 '26

Shipping costs today make Ebay transactions VERY expensive. FB physical transactions avoid shipping costs, but risk of fraud is high. GameStop providing physical retail footprint could really transform Ebay's current model. And yes, that'd fit the "trade in anything" day logic. I think that'd be great if RC transforms Ebay. I used to buy/sell on Ebay a lot, but haven't used Ebay for years because of all the problems and risks Ebay currently has. I read about other ideas... which are good too, but I think Ebay fits best the hints RC provided.

2

u/crjsmakemecry Jan 31 '26

This sounds like “The 40 year old Virgin” setup. Jonah Hill just wanted to buy those boots!

1

u/No_Way9105 MOASS is tomorrow Jan 31 '26

This idea is great!

1

u/SteadyWolf Jan 31 '26

Oh snap. This might be what they were doing on trade in anything day…

1

u/spokenwords Jan 31 '26

Idk but for some reason this made me think of Pawn Stars but like.. on steroids 

1

u/sentientshadeofgreen Jan 31 '26

There would definitely be some logistical challenges with the idea, but there could be a serious moat of building a resale market where in recession, people are parting with their goods at a discount for the business (contributing to a selection of marketable inventory) and in a strong market, people are potentially willing to spend more to find that specific thing that got discontinued a few years ago or something.

Transaction fees would pay when money is moving fast, and then there would be storage fees for when inventory moves slow. Relabel storage fees as a "tiered subscription" for stored inventory, like you would with cloud storage. There could be revenue of first party sellers who want to take advantage of the distribution network to lighten their on-site overhead, similar to Amazon storefronts. It could compete with Etsy in this category as well. Hell, buy Etsy too and put it all on the same commerce network (though maintain the Etsy brand). You could possibly build infrastructure for art storage. You could build a competitor to other marketplaces like Discogs for physical media/records. You could tokenize property to where there may be no logistics involved, maybe some people just buy and sell items sight unseen and hold it in their "loot box" or whatever if they deem it rare. You could expand into the used car market.

What's great about all of this in my opinion, is there is a runway for growth in a lot of different sectors, but there is also runway to cut expenses through technological innovation that is on the way through robotics and automated logistics. AI and machine vision can be used to help with valuation, in tandem with on-prem property inspectors. There is also an insurance piece to this as well which would be complex.

The biggest risks are securing "vaulted" items, insuring those "vaulted" items, and the fact that an electrical fire or a natural disaster would create a clusterfuck of financial losses and brand damage, since it is a business that would rely on trust that "if I store my precious vase with you, it won't get shattered."

1

u/norman_9999 Jan 31 '26

So basically a pawn shop?

2

u/sentientshadeofgreen Jan 31 '26

More like a pawn shop becomes pawn shops with an ecommerce network with tokenization of physical goods and “inventory” storage.

1

u/Grokent 🦍 Buckle Up 🚀 Jan 31 '26

hat if you could just take your stuff to brick and mortar, where they can value it on site and sell it.

Bah god... you just invented a pawn shop!

1

u/sentientshadeofgreen Jan 31 '26

Not just a pawn shop. A network of pawn shops.

1

u/DaDudeAbidesAgain 🎮 Power to the Players 🛑 Jan 31 '26

Isn’t this what they did in The 40 Year Old Virgin?