Should Amazon Buy eBay?

In case you haven’t heard, there has been much talk in the past few days about a recent New York Times article about Why Amazon Should Buy eBay. This is an interesting read, but maybe the best part is the reaction to the article. As of this writing, there are 61 comments to this posting. Most are an interesting take on the state of eBay and Amazon, and well worth looking at.

Randy Smythe wrote a post on his blog about why the idea is a bad one. We really like Randy’s take on why Amazon should never buy eBay. It really shows that he has a very good understanding of the current e-commerce state of affairs.

Why a merger is a bad idea basically boils down to the fact that eBay and Amazon are two distinctly different companies that would have a near impossible time meshing. Here are just a few of the differences between the two companies:

• Amazon sells products. eBay facilitates the sale of products.
• Amazon has a reputation for good customer service, which they can provide since they control how customer service is handled. eBay’s reputation for customer service is spotty since it is up to each individual seller to provide customer service. We all know how differently each eBay seller defines good customer service.
• Amazon is not afraid to implement and share new technology (example – Amazon S3). eBay is very slow to implement new technology, even when there is a glaring need for it.

Probably the most telling reason why an Amazon/eBay merger would never work can be found in the following quote from Randy’s post:

“Amazon is run by entrepreneurs, visionaries, long-term thinkers. eBay is run by consultants who micro-manage the bottom line, are only concerned with the quarterly results and only make changes when they are forced to. The company cultures are too divergent. Jeff Bezos is not going anywhere, so eBay managers would need to adapt to the Amazon way of doing things, which means most of them would head for the exits.”

The idea of a merger is definitely an interesting thought exercise. Stranger things have happened, but if we were the betting sort, we would not put money on such a merger happening.

What do YOU think of the idea?

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