It's an eBay Christmas

Posted On: Dec 22,2024 Posted By: Admin Comments: 176

You can feel the gears of commerce grinding as the looming holiday season adds load to the system. The products we want to give as gifts are stuck on ships or quays or Asian factory floors. Supply chain issues abound at the same time we are flush with stimulus cash and a post-pandemic hunger for a blowout holiday season. 

This kind of tension between the wants of the demand side and the abilities of the supply side are a likely setup to spiking prices and shortages in imported products.

The relief value for this purchasing pressure is likely to feed a robust reaction in the artisan made and resold retail space. Etsy and eBay are going to be the big winner this season as shelves are stripped of new products. eBay, in particular, may become the red hot destination for frantic shoppers as the realization sets in that west coast anchorages will not be cleared in time for Christmas Day. With luck, the signal will be strong enough early enough to prompt people to open up their closets, basements, and attics in search of item to sell on this metaverse yard sale website.

What many consumers may not realize is that eBay has become a “go to” destination for used and surplus industrial machine parts. In my time in the chain link fence industry we regularly scavenged for parts for our 30+ year old wire drawing equipment on eBay. This exchange has become critical to our manufacturing base. 

My guess is that as new part access gets increasingly more problematic, old machines will be cannibalized and this exchange as well as others will become the critical conduit of replacement parts. 

Additionally, flow goods like electrical breakers that have historically been discarded in the remodeling process have become a used hot commodity because of persistent shortages of new replacements.

When the pain gets bad enough supplies will be found and demands will be met. Both eBay and Etsy are at near all time valuations so it would appear investors are anticipating a very strong season for both.