eBay's TCGPlayer Offices Up For Bid As CEO Robert Bigler Shares Strategy Progress
UPDATE 5-22-25
eBay is laying off over 200 unionized workers at TCGPlayer and will be moving authentication operations to new facility in Louisville, Kentucky amidst ongoing labor troubles.
Liz Morton
UPDATE 2-27-25
TCGPlayer has resumed selling on eBay, with a single auction started on February 24th.
Coincidentally, February 24th is also the day the Department of Justice was granted their request for more time to decide whether or not to move forward with appealing the EPA case against eBay which was dismissed on Section 230 grounds.
eBay had anchored their argument on the idea that they are "never a seller" and only a "pure third party peer to peer marketplace" - a position that these TCGPlayer eBay sales clearly disproved.
Liz Morton
The fact that TCGPlayer stopped selling on eBay while the threat of an appeal was hanging over their heads and has only resumed selling now that it looks like the DOJ may back down is very interesting timing indeed.
eBay-owned TCGPlayer could soon have a new landlord as Syracuse, NY offices head for the auction block next month - could eBay take the opportunity to make a move as CEO Robert Bigler lays out progress on strategy goals for 2025 and beyond?
Rick Moriarty of Syracuse.com reports the complex which is currently home to TCGPlayer's offices as well as three different federal government departments, a major regional law firm and more is being put up for sale with a starting bid of $2.5 Million.
Rick Moriarty | rmoriartysyracuse.com
eBay/TCGPlayer is the property’s largest tenant, occupying 36% of its space, which could potentially put them in a prime position to bargain with any new owner - though if eBay's treatment of unionized workers at TCGPlayer (stalling contract negations for over 500 days) is any indication, then bargaining may not exactly by their strong suit.
Of course, eBay could put in a bid for the property themselves, but that seems unlikely for several reasons, not the least of which is those other federal government tenants.
Google shows one of those tenants to be U.S. EPA-CID - which is the Criminal Enforcement Division of the Environmental Protection Agency - and things could get awkward very quickly if eBay were to become their landlord, considering EPA sued the company in 2023, seeking to hold them liable for prohibited pesticides, chemicals and illegal emissions control cheat devices sold on the platform.
eBay hired Sullivan & Cromwell for their notorious reputation in defense against environmental claims and deployed a strategy arguing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects the marketplace from liability for items sold by 3rd parties on their site.
U.S. District Judge Orelia Merchant found the Section 230 arguments compelling, granting the motion dismissing the EPA's case in September 2024.
Liz Morton
As part of their defense, eBay argued that it is "never itself a seller" and is instead "a pure third-party, peer-to-peer online marketplace."
While it may be true eBay did not directly sell the specific items in question in this lawsuit, their blanket statements saying the company is "never itself a seller" have been demonstrably false at least since August 2023, when eBay set up shop on its own platform as its owned-subsidiary TCGPlayer.
Conveniently, eBay changed TCGPlayer policies and appears to have stopped selling items under that account the week before the case was dismissed, which could indicate eBay was concerned that provably false statement about "never being a seller" could become an issue in the appeal or grounds for FTC action under the new administration.
Liz Morton
It's also possible eBay could look to use this opportunity to move the TCGPlayer offices elsewhere, including potentially to a different state like they did after acquiring Sneaker Con's authentication operations in 2021.
eBay is currently being sued by workers from their former Queens, NY sneaker center, accusing the company of breaking New York and Federal labor laws - and the details of the case suggest it's possible the decision to move those operations to New Jersey could have been influenced by concerns that unionization efforts at TCGPlayer could spread to eBay's other authentication facilities.
Liz Morton
Could moving TCGPlayer also be on the table? eBay hasn't hinted one way or the other, but CEO Robert Bigler is sharing updates on progress they've made on a major strategy overhaul started last year.
Bigler says through this process, eBay has discovered top seller needs to increase probability and grow sales on the platform, including:
- Drive sales and bring you more buyers
- Improve our digitization technology so you can identify, price, sort, and list large volumes of cards with ease
- Refine our seller tools so you can manage and optimize your inventory
- Save you time and money with low-cost, high-volume fulfillment solutions
- Simplify your fee structure so you can calculate when and how you’re making money
Seller Experience Team
He also laid out plans for 2025 and beyond, saying they will focus in three key areas:
The Road Ahead: Modernizing our Seller Tools and Capabilities
We know that to be your most trusted partner, we must streamline our legacy seller tools and build inventory management, fulfillment, in-store, and digitization solutions that better support you.We will continue to improve across all five of our strategic priorities, but over the next two years we will lean heavily into two primary goals:
- Inventory Management: Rebuilding and launching a scalable TCG-focused suite of inventory management tools for professional sellers.
Creating an easy to use, seamless suite of tools that allows you to easily identify, price, list, sort, store, sell, and ship large volumes of cards is our top priority over the next two years.This work includes rethinking our legacy inventory management tools and capabilities to better meet the needs of local game stores, including enhancements like integrated shipping and upgrading our point-of-sale offerings.
Our goal is to fix, then scale all parts of inventory management to help you create the broadest most relevant inventory selection for buyers whether they shop in-store or online.
With this renewed focus, we will pause new BinderPOS seller onboarding and sign-ups, effective immediately. However, we will continue to support current BinderPOS sellers while we work in parallel to fix our foundation and modernize our capabilities.
- Fulfillment: Improving our internal operations, processes and systems to grow our low-cost Fulfillment Solutions.
We’ve already spent a lot of time working to evolve our fulfillment services, ensuring we allocate our resources effectively, and invest in programs that help you run your business better and more profitably.We are focused on continuing to enhance our operational capacity so we can introduce revamped and cost-effective fulfillment offerings such as Direct, Store Your Products and Sort, that allow you to focus on running your store while we handle your logistics and customer service needs.
The part about pausing new BinderPOS seller onboarding and sign up is particularly interesting - TCGPlayer's acquisition of BinderPOS was specifically called out as a concern by sellers who filed a petition urging the FTC to investigate eBay for anticompetitive practices and alleged antitrust violations last year.
Liz Morton
The FTC under Chair Lina Khan did not make any formal or public response to that ROCC petition, which was disappointing by not surprising given the close connection that Khan and others at the Commission had to eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
Might newly appointed FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson be more inclined to look into the matter?
It's too early to say but one section of his agenda promising to "[take] on entrenched left-wing ideologues at FTC who take their agenda from liberal journalists & activists" could be construed as note so subtle shots fired at Omidyar and others who have held ideological sway over the Commission in recent years.
If Ferguson wants to show it's a new day at the FTC and disavow the apparent regulatory capture under previous leadership, taking the ROCC petition seriously and launching a thorough investigation into eBay's business practices, including M&A due diligence failures and deceptive dark pattern ad practices, would be a good place to start.
What do you think of TCGPlayer's strategic priorities and what would you suggest they should focus on to improve the buyer and seller experience on the platform? Let us know in the comments below!
Concerned
