Why Amazon and eBay Should Merge

The gist of the article is this:

1) The author loves Amazon and eBay.

2) Amazon is the best at cataloging items and eBay is still trying to solve this problem with user-generated items.

3) eBay is the auction monster and Amazon has an interest in bolstering their store with an auction marketplace.

So they should merge? What's wrong with competition?

I tend to think this is just some pipe dream from a guy who really likes Amazon and eBay, and not much thought has gone into how the new company will be a greater success than the separate parts or how it could be positive for consumers.

I'm also not seeing what Amazon gets out of this. I understand eBay gets better cataloging technology. I don't think the value of that is anywhere near enough to justify a multi-billion dollar merger but that's beside the point. Amazon has user-generated items already and they often fetch prices at least as high as the same items on eBay. They already have as much visibility as they want for user-generated items. (See the article from yesterday about the Amazon shopping cart. They increased visibility for user items and then refocused on Amazon items.) If they wanted auctions they could add them. My guess is the reason they haven't is because they're not interested.

I think the author should read up on the AOL Time Warner merger. That one was supposed to result in some super company that would rule the media world and we know how well that turned out.

I don't know if I agree with this. While I agree Ebay needs to do something, I don't think Amazon gains enough for the merger/acquisition. While I think gaining half.com would be a big benefit and remove a marquee competitor for Amazon's handling of second hand sales, I think that Ebay itself is too different a property and it doesn't exactly gel with the rest of the Amazon properties.

I don't know really, I'll need to think more about it.

Would it technically be a merger or acquisition?