eBay Deepens Goldin Auctions Integration With Single Sign On & Search Placement Cross Promotion
eBay is ramping up integration with Goldin Auctions with new features designed to encourage cross platform traffic and shopping for hobby enthusiasts - but will self-preferencing practices gain regulatory scrutiny?
Goldin has largely continued to operate as an independent site since eBay acquired it from PSA parent company Collectors Holdings in 2024 - while the official Goldin eBay account does stay active with a small number of items, the vast majority of sales are still made through the Goldin.co website.
Liz Morton
But now eBay is hoping to increase cross platform performance with a single sign on offering allowing users to log in to Goldin with their existing eBay account credentials and new embedded promotional placement in eBay search direct buyers to Goldin.co to purchase.
Here's how the single sign on option works:
When logging in or creating an account on Goldin, users will now see a button that says "sign in with eBay." The button will lead the user to an eBay sign on screen.
Once the user logs in with their eBay username and password, it will request to verify the account details to create a new account on Goldin (if you don't already have one set up). You'll only need to verify once - after the initial set up, entering your eBay credentials should immediately log you in to Goldin.co
In an effort to get users to try out this new feature, eBay has launched a "link up and luck out" sweepstakes.
The sweepstakes runs through January 31, 2026 with one winner receiving a $1,500 Goldin credit and four runner ups receiving $250 credits each.
The second new feature may be more controversial and could even court regulatory scrutiny as eBay appears to be self-preferencing with dedicated prominent promotional space in search results directing buyers off eBay.com to Goldin.co instead.
Director of Product, Marketplaces & High Value Commerce, Jayne Peressini, described the new feature in a post on LinkedIn:
" Every Goldin listing now surfaces directly in eBay search. Type in Shohei Ohtani and you will see Shohei cards from Goldin appear right in the results. This unlocks massive buyer reach, drives stronger liquidity, and reinforces Goldin as the premier destination to consign high end collectibles."
Here's what it looks like in practice:
When searching on eBay, buyers will still see the usual results listed - but as they move down the page, they'll see a horizontally scrolling carousel module that says "Find It On Goldin."
If you click any of those images, it leads off eBay and directly to the item on Goldin.co.
For most of eBay's 30 year existence, executive leadership has boasted that they proudly don't compete with their sellers - a clear call out and attempt to differentiate from rivals like Amazon and Walmart which do sell items directly (first party) in direct competition with third party sellers on their platforms.
Sellers had been skeptical of that framing for years, saying eBay may not have sold directly on the platform themselves but that they often put a heavy thumb on the scale to benefit some sellers over others - which also benefits eBay in both direct and indirect ways.
Liz Morton
But any claim that eBay doesn't compete with sellers was blown out of the water in 2023 when they quietly set up shop on their own platform under subsidiary TCGPlayer brand, selling Magic the Gathering and other trading card games in direct competition with third party sellers.
Liz Morton
That move, along with other actions eBay undertook in the TCGPlayer acquisition and apparent due diligence failures, raised concerns about potential antitrust violations and anti-competitive behavior, resulting in the Responsible Online Commerce Coalition filing a petition urging the FTC to investigate.
Liz Morton
As part of their letter to the FTC, ROCC also mentioned eBay's acquisition of Goldin, saying it added to monopoly concerns since the merger effectively eliminated one of eBay's competitors in the sports trading card and memorabilia market.
The petition also called out the clear self-preferencing on display with the TCGPlayer storefront on eBay, including the fact that eBay had granted itself trust building "direct from brand" badging even though TCGPlayer is not the manufacturer or brand rights holder for the items they sell and that eBay did not adequately disclose to potential buyers that a purchase from the TCGPlayer account was essentially a purchase from eBay directly.
eBay appears to have learned at least one lesson from that debacle, with the official Goldin eBay account at least acknowledge it is "part of the eBay family", but they're still dishonestly self-preferencing with the "Direct from Brand" badging on store and listing pages, despite the fact that Goldin is not the manufacturer or brand rights owner for the trading cards and memorabilia they sell.
But there's an even more troubling display of self-preferencing with this new eBay search integration - not only is that promotional carousel which takes buyers off eBay in direct competition with third party sellers, it mirrors search placement that third party sellers can only access by paying additional ad fees, which obviously eBay isn't going to be paying themselves.
We can clearly see that the Find It On Goldin carousel display shows no signs of being a Sponsored or Promoted ad in any way - in fact, the URLs even explicitly tag these links as "organic."
But just a little further down the page, you'll find a similar horizontal scrolling carousel with links to third party seller listings on eBay which are tagged as Sponsored - meaning if a buyer clicks on those links and purchases the item, the seller will be paying an additional Promoted Listings ad fee on top of the final value fees eBay already takes on the sale.
And while that's already bad, it will only get worse next month when new attribution policies for Promoted Listings General go into effect which are expected to dramatically increase the number of sales which will collect ad fees.
Liz Morton
The FTC under Chair Lina Khan did not make any formal or public response to the ROCC petition, which was disappointing but perhaps not surprising given the close connection that Khan and others at the Commission at that time had to eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
If current Chairman Andrew Ferguson wants to show it's a new day at the FTC and disavow the apparent regulatory capture under previous leadership, taking the ROCC petition back up and launching a thorough investigation into eBay's M&A activity with the TCGPlayer and Goldin and the new ad attribution policy would be a great place to start.
Liz Morton
What do you think of eBay's latest Goldin integrations with single sign on capability and "Find It On Goldin" eBay search placements? Let us know in the comments below!
