I’ve written about eBay Inc. (EBAY) a lot this year, mostly about the rejected bid from GameStop Corp. (GME) to buy it. The bigger eBay story was unfolding inside its app.
If you’ve opened eBay lately, you may have noticed livestreams are easier to find. In July, eBay dropped the invite-only rule for eBay Live, TechCrunch reported. Eligible sellers in more than 300 categories, from electronics to fashion, can now go live.
That makes this eBay’s first holiday season with live selling open this widely. Last year, eBay billed its live holiday lineup as its biggest ever.
The timing matters because eBay is growing again. Gross merchandise volume, the value of everything sold on the site, rose 15% to $22.4 billion in the second quarter, according to its earnings release.
CEO Jamie Iannone gives live selling part of the credit. He told analysts in August that Live can “deepen engagement, broaden discovery, and increase velocity” across eBay, TechCrunch reported.
Also read: A rejected $56B takeover bid just rescued GameStop’s quarter
Wall Street has noticed, too. Morgan Stanley analyst Nathan Feather made eBay the firm’s top pick on Monday, October 12, 2026, according to a research note shared with TheStreet. He raised his price target to $132 from $127.
His report, “The Missing Piece: Why Live Is Already Driving eBay’s Growth,” estimates that live selling drove about 40% of eBay’s growth this year. The catch is that eBay doesn’t own the market it’s chasing.
Live shoppers are turning eBay into a trading floor
“Think of eBay like the NYSE for used items,” Feather wrote. Most shoppers once bought items and kept them. Live auctions added short-term traders who buy cards on a stream, then relist them on eBay for a profit.
What stopped me in the note wasn’t the price target. It was a survey of about 2,000 U.S. consumers. More than half of live shoppers resell what they buy at least some of the time.
That matters because eBay earns a fee every time something sells. A card that changes hands three times creates three sales, even if no new shopper arrives.
The same survey found live shoppers spend an average of $316 a month. That habit helps explain how eBay grew without adding many new buyers.
The stock entered Monday near the top of its 52-week range, according to the note. It then rose about 4% that afternoon.
The momentum is real, but scaling this engine puts eBay on a collision course with a dominant startup that still controls most of the live market.
ymgerman / Getty Images
A $20 billion rival still owns the format
Whatnot, a private startup, holds about 60% of the Western live shopping market by its own estimate, the note said. eBay Live has about 8%, by Morgan Stanley’s math.
Whatnot raised $545 million at a $20 billion valuation in August, according to Bloomberg. More than 650,000 people were signing up for it each week, Retail Insight Network reported. That is the audience eBay wants this holiday season.
Yet eBay profits even when the auction happens on Whatnot. Winners often flip their cards on eBay, and sellers stock up there before going live. Feather argues that the live market “has caused [eBay’s] growth, not just correlated with it.”
That creates a risk that is easy to overlook. eBay’s results now hinge partly on a rival’s marketing budget. The note flags that Whatnot’s user growth has started to moderate.
Shoppers should know what they are bidding on. In card “breaks” and “repacks,” buyers pay for a chance at whatever a box holds, which the note calls speculative. Fortune reported that Whatnot has faced concerns about gambling-like spending, though the company says it bans gambling-style activity.
Most of Wall Street isn’t as bullish as Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley’s enthusiasm isn’t the consensus. Seventeen of the 32 analysts tracked by StockAnalysis rate eBay a Hold, with an average price target near $116.
Recent calls show the gap, according to StockAnalysis:
- Overweight, $132 target: Morgan Stanley’s Feather raised his target on Monday.
- Buy, $137 target: Wedbush’s Ygal Arounian raised his target in August.
- Hold, $115 target: Bernstein’s Nikhil Devnani held steady on Monday.
- Sell, $91 target: Wells Fargo’s Ken Gawrelski trimmed his target on Monday.
The divide is about durability. Morgan Stanley treats collectibles as a cyclical risk asset. Card prices tend to rise with small-cap stocks and fall when real interest rates climb, the note found.
eBay’s own outlook hints at cooling. It guided third-quarter GMV growth of 10% to 12%, including newly acquired Depop, according to its August filing.
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Morgan Stanley thinks eBay’s live bet has room to run
Feather’s critical assumption is that eBay Live grows to about 22% of the live market by 2030. Nearer term, he expects better-than-feared 2027 profit guidance and steady sales data as comparisons toughen.
His bull case puts the stock at $237 if live shopping becomes a $100 billion market by 2030. His bear case, built on a consumer slowdown, puts it at $70.
The note also argues that live shopping is entertainment, not a chore people will hand to AI shopping agents. If that holds, live video doubles as a hedge against the next shift in online retail.
This holiday season is the first real test of eBay’s open-door bet. If it works, eBay won’t just collect fees on a rival’s boom. It will own a bigger piece of it.
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