Word: amazone
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...Internet collapse continues, and even substantial firms like Amazon and Yahoo are struggling to stay ahead of it. But eBay has never had it better. Revenues topped $430 million last year, up 92% over 1999. The auction king now has 22.5 million registered users, a number that grew at a 125% annualized rate last quarter. And it's on track to do more than $6 billion in gross merchandise sales this year...
That virtuality translates into remarkable profit margins. eBay's gross margins last quarter were a stunning 82%. Amazon, which actually has to acquire goods and ship them out, has gross margins averaging 20%. And because so much of eBay's customer recruitment is viral--sellers attracting buyers to the site, and buyers attracting sellers--its customer-acquisition costs are just half of Amazon...
...began when Josh Kopelman went online to find a copy of John Grisham's The Testament. He was about to spend $20 to buy it new on Amazon, but he decided to see if there were any copies listed on eBay. There were 12 up for auction, starting for as low as $1. And nobody was bidding on them...
...high-tech entrepreneur--that online auctions had a flaw. They didn't work well for mass-produced items whose value was certain. So he decided to create an e-tailing site called "ebazon." Like eBay, it would connect individual buyers and sellers to trade low-cost, used goods. Like Amazon, it would offer simplicity of use and fixed prices...
...Half's success--in November it hit No. 3 in the e-commerce rankings--is that Kopelman has replicated eBay's strengths. It is a "many-to-many" site, hooking up millions of users to buy and sell, which means it offers millions more trading (and profit) possibilities than Amazon or eToys, for instance. And like eBay, it is a "virtual" site. It doesn't have to shoulder the cost of acquiring, storing or shipping goods...