eBay To Stop Reselling Tickets In The UK In Favour Of StubHub Business
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Written by Elliott Batte
Leading online auction site eBay is set to stop users selling tickets to musical, sporting, and comedy concerts and events on its UK site, instead advertising and redirecting buyers to their secondary ticket exchange StubHub.
eBay bought ticket-reselling business StubHub for $310million in cash in 2007, and it’s gone on to become extremely successful in the US. But, here in the UK, it’s not yet seen the same glory - so eBay is now ditching it’s ticket-reselling ability this side of the pond, in favour of redirecting Brits looking for event tickets to StubHub - as well as placing StubHub adverts across the site.
The difference between eBay and reselling sites such as StubHub and Seatwave for example, is that with eBay you’re interacting directly with a seller - meaning the transaction is your responsibility and the risks are your own. Secondary sites offer the buyer full protection, and though they take a slightly bigger cut than eBay would, you’re much less likely to meet a scam, or fraudulent ticket, than with eBay.
A spokesperson for eBay has said: “eBay.co.uk’s concert, comedy, theatre, festival and sport events ticket categories will move to StubHub.co.uk, an eBay company. As a dedicated ticket marketplace, StubHub makes it quicker, easier and safer to buy and sell spare tickets.”
The site currently has around 5000 ticket listings, making it one of the UK’s leading ticket-selling markets, but the change will take place over the next few months - helping to boost the availability of tickets in the UK secondary market, bringing down resale ticket prices and reducing fraud.
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