Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN), Is eBay Inc (EBAY) Destined for Greatness?

One of the biggest risk factors relating to eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY)’s business is that, outside of its auction niche, there aren’t any exceptionally compelling reasons to buy anything on the site rather than on Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), or at any one of a variety of competing online retail portals. PayPal, while highly touted as the real crown jewel of the eBay empire, is also not immune to competition. In most cases, PayPal simply imposes an additional layer of processing between the credit (or debit) card and the seller. Streamlined options like Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Wallet, which Fool contributor Tim Beyers suggests could be tied to an eBay-like barter system via Google+, would simply need to offer lower processing fees and similar (or greater) levels of convenience to cause a major shift in users. Of course, PayPal has the advantage of a recently announced outer-space payment system, which may or may not be a delayed April Fool’s joke. Google, of course, is already in on the space race — it sponsors the Lunar X Prize to be awarded for a privately funded moon landing. It stands to reason that Google would be ready for space-based payments, too.

Putting the pieces together
Today, eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) has some of the qualities that make up a great stock, but no stock is truly perfect. Digging deeper can help you uncover the answers you need to make a great buy — or to stay away from a stock that’s going nowhere.

The article Is eBay Destined for Greatness? originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Alex Planes has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends and owns shares of Amazon.com, eBay, and Google.

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