leapingcat

Amazon, eBay, Overall eCommerce Suffering from Retail Woes

Just looking at the p/e ratios in isolation gives a strange result. Amazon, which has the costs and risks associated with carrying inventory, should in theory be less profitable than Ebay, which transfers those costs and risks to third parties, yet the markets judge Amazon as being the better long-term investment.
Could it be that investor sentiment, as indicated by the quotes above, has some bearing on this. Amazon appears as a well-managed company that is affected, like everyone else, by the current downturn in the economy, but should emerge in a healthy position when it recovers and has a sound long-term strategy. Ebay on the other hand appears to be floundering, and has merely vague ideas of where it wants to be, without the strategy or management to achieve it, and this is reflected in its current value.
At present, cash is king, even though the returns are low, so I will not be investing in either company, but guess which one I will be keeping an eye on for a window of opportunity.