[DSMan195276]

Well let's be clear, the "trade-in anything" day was a fancy discount day. They gave everybody $5 for whatever they brought in, online you can read from employees that they just donated or threw it all away, no attempt to actually keep any of it to sell.

That said IMO the biggest difference in the two situations you're describing is that EBay is not in the business of buying the items to then sell later, they just facilitate transactions between two parties and some of the logistics (depending on the seller). They're similar as far as dealing with "used goods" but the actual design of the business and risk being taken on is very different.

EBay also not really lacking what you're describing - there are fufillment centers that can be used for EBay listings, there's the EBay "Authenticity Guarantee" program for cards, they already own TCGplayer which does all of this for trading cards way better than GameStop does, etc.

Perhaps somehow these things could be improved by GameStop but I can't imagine it being significantly better than it currently is.

[59percentmore]

Can you tell me where your local eBay fulfillment center is? I can tell you where my local Gamestop is (no, not that one, the other one).

[notahacker]

I can't tell you where the nearest GameStop is because afaik they don't have any locations in my country. Can find half a dozen convenience stores that will handle eBay (or Amazon) goods for me within walking distance.

[DSMan195276]

No, why does it matter? I also don't know where my local GameStop is since the few by me closed a couple years ago :P

Plenty of stuff on EBay offers me 2 day shipping clearly via fulfillment centers, as far as I'm concerned that's all that matters. Do you think the addition of GameStop stores would mean EBay can offer faster shipping than that on a significant number of items?

[59percentmore]

You asked what could be improved with Gamestop. Public knowledge of Gamestop locations is a boon if people don't know where your existing fulfillment centers are.

[DSMan195276]

Yes but I don't need to go to my nearest fulfillment center if they ship everything to my house, that's why I don't know where it is.

What do you think people need to visit fulfillment centers to do?

[59percentmore]

Buyers? Sure. (Unless you're like me and paranoid after getting porch-pirated.)

Sellers...?

[DSMan195276]

Sellers what? You generally don't just drop stuff off at a fulfillment center, when you get to that size you're dealing with large amounts of inventory and you ship it to them.

If you're saying sellers could come into a GameStop to have their individual items packed and shipped out, I suppose, but:

1. They don't really have the space for much shipping volume at any of their stores.

2. You can walk into any USPS, UPS, FedEx, etc. store and do that already, you don't need an 'EBay' store. GameStop would presumably get the packages picked up by one of those carriers so it's not saving any shipping time or expense.

For buyers, in many cases there's already alternative drop-off locations similar to GameStop Ex. For UPS deliveries I can get them shipped to a bunch of different convenience stores near me. GameStop stores might be a nice addition to that list but it's not enabling something you couldn't do before, and I would think for most people they already have a closer location than a GameStop.