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- Serial reseller: Etsy just offloaded the last of its pandemic acquisitions to eBay.
- Ring it up: Super Bowl champs the Seattle Seahawks are officially up for sale.
- Crowdsauce: What is America’s favorite condiment?
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Etsy sells fashion app Depop to eBay, as the pair’s post-pandemic paths split further |
Like many of us who spent the pandemic frittering away our extra savings on things we simply did not need, Etsy seems to have a case of buyer’s remorse, offloading the final remnant of its “House of Brands” experiment earlier this week.
On Wednesday, the company announced that it’s selling Depop, the secondhand fashion app beloved by Gen Z, to eBay for $1.2 billion. That’s $425 million less than what it paid five years ago — and a sign of just how sharply two companies that rode the e-commerce pandemic wave have since diverged. |
As its crafty marketplace became a lockdown darling, Etsy doubled down on a brand-building strategy, snapping up Depop and Brazilian marketplace Elo7 to construct a portfolio spanning handmade goods, musical instruments, and resale fashion. Investors, naturally, were along for the ride, cheering the stock to an all-time high in late 2021. |
But when consumers finally returned to stores with inflation-squeezed budgets, managing multiple brands alongside its core artisan marketplace started to prove too costly for the company. Over the past three years, Etsy has unwound the acquisitions, with Depop the last to go.
Meanwhile, eBay — the less buzzy elder statesman of e-commerce — has steadily thrived by leaning further into what it already did well: so-called “recommerce,” with demand from bargain hunters and collectors proving stickier than many expected. Its shares now trade more than 130% above where they started in 2020, while Etsy has erased nearly all its pandemic gains.
So, what does the Depop deal mean for the companies?
For Etsy, CEO Kruti Patel Goyal said the sale allows it to “focus exclusively” on its core marketplace, where gross merchandise sales have slumped for years. For eBay, Depop could bring a younger audience — about 90% of its active buyers are under 34 — to an aging behemoth of the online shopping space. |
The Seahawks got put up for sale just 10 days after winning Super Bowl LX |
After weeks of speculation, and even less time from a Super Bowl win, the Seattle Seahawks have officially been put up for sale, the Paul G. Allen Estate confirmed in a statement on Wednesday. Having defeated the New England Patriots to win the team’s second-ever NFL title on February 8, the Seahawks are now underway with a sales process that’s expected to continue through the 2026 offseason, per CNBC. |
Following the death of Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen — who bought the Seahawks nearly 30 years ago for $200 million — in 2018, the franchise was placed in a trust with a directive that it would eventually be sold and the proceeds given to charity. It’s worth noting that league rules require an individual, rather than a group or trust, be the controlling owner of a franchise, leading to (since denied) reports that the Seahawks were fined for their structure.
Of course, with the way sports team valuations have soared in the years since Allen’s initial investment, the franchise will fetch many magnitudes more than it did in 1997. |
Given that Forbes was already valuing the team at $6.7 billion by the end of 2025 — before it got a second Super Bowl win — the franchise could likely end up with one of the biggest price tags in sporting history. Indeed, last year’s valuation had already put the Hawks as the joint 21st-most-valuable sports team in the world alongside NBA team the Boston Celtics... both were still only about half the value of the Dallas Cowboys, which has held Forbes’ top spot for 10 consecutive years.
But, in light of another Lombardi Trophy on the Seahawks’ shelf, the sale looks poised to break the NFL record for a franchise purchase, with a team exec telling ESPN that the deal could fetch up to $8 billion. |
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America’s favorite condiment isn’t ketchup — it’s peanut butter |
Aside from some run-of-the-mill contamination recalls and compensation allegories, peanut butter has been in the news for more interesting reasons recently, after a descendant of PB royalty sparked discourse about the spread.
Brad Reese, the grandson of — you guessed it — the guy who invented Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, hit out at the brand’s current owner, Hershey’s, for skimping on ingredients, including replacing peanut butter with “peanut butter crème.” Reese told The AP that the candy was now “not edible,” and described the recipe change as “very devastating.”
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A new YouGov survey about condiments, conducted January 30 to February 1, reflects the strong feelings that Americans, besides those who are dynastic descendants, have about the spread. Indeed, 44% of US adults reported that they “love” peanut butter and a further 35% said they “like it,” making it the top-rated condiment overall — before you say what we’re all thinking, YouGov went out of its way to point out that it defined condiments “broadly” for the purposes of the survey.
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The top 5 was rounded out by some other unconventional “condiment” choices, including honey (40% love it) and chocolate sauce (33%). Predictably, hot sauce was the most divisive condiment in the survey, with almost the same share saying they hate it (27%) as love it (28%), even as sales of spicy food continue to soar in the US.
Ketchup, arguably the most ubiquitous table sauce, notched a 75% share of positive responses and was reported as being owned by the greatest share of Americans, at 84%. Not only that, but of the 22% of US adults who say they carry sauces outside the home, 40% said they were packing ketchup; hot sauce, meanwhile, was reportedly held by far fewer sauce carriers, at just 22% (sorry, Beyoncé).
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The Supreme Court ruled to strike down a large portion of President Trump’s global tariffs in a 6-3 majority vote this morning — seeing major US stocks and indexes jump on the news.
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Scooped out: Nestlé is negotiating a sale of its $1.3 billion ice cream business to joint venture partner Froneri, aiming to narrow its focus to faster-growing categories.
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The Information reported that OpenAI is finalizing commitments on a funding round that could top $100 billion at a valuation of $830 billion.
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A new AARP survey found that 7% of retirees aged 50+ said they’ve “unretired” in the past six months, with nearly half of those citing money as the primary reason for reentering the workforce.
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Marty moves: Major League Table Tennis is this week seeking $7.5 million to $10 million in its second round of fundraising following the success of a certain ping pong movie.
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This visual from The Pudding unpicks the variation in women’s clothing sizes among popular fashion brands.
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It’s payback time: How consumers plan to spend their tax refunds this year, per the National Retail Federation.
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Off the charts: Which company has just dethroned Walmart as the world’s largest company by annual revenue? [Answer below].
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