By
Tara Evans
15:52 GMT, 21 January 2013
|
15:52 GMT, 21 January 2013
EBay will soon stop traders selling tickets to gigs, concerts and sporting events, with users instead directed to its own ticket reselling website, StubHub.
The global auction website bought StubHub in 2007 for
$310million cash but the website failed to make a dent
in the UK online reselling market, which is dominated by rivals Seatwave,
Viagogo and GetMeIn.
EBay, which has one of the largest ticket market in the UK with almost 5,000 listed today, will make the switch later this year, according to a report in the Financial Times.
Stop: eBay is to stop users from reselling tickets to events via its auction website and will instead direct customers to its reselling site, StubHub.
However, eBay users buying tickets to events are not protected and sometimes fake tickets can be resold via the auction website.
Reselling websites take commission
from customers for listing or buying tickets: StubHub takes 25 per cent
of the final sale price.
Sellers only receive payment for tickets
once the buyers have successfully attended an event – which means that
the validity of tickets is guaranteed.
A spokesman from eBay, 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.’
Reselling websites have come under fire in the past from the event industry, with pressure from fans, event organisers and artists to stop tickets from being resold at much higher values.
Last year Ticketmaster said it was developing a face value ticket exchange website after it provided paperless tickets to events where artists and management staff forbid tickets from being resold.