...Business Strategy Established in 1995, eBay is an online auction and shopping website that attracts more than 276million shoppers around the world. The business strategies can be analyzed from the following perspectives. Products and services eBay produces The strategy set by eBay is to create a powerful online platform for the sale of goods and services by a passionate community of individuals and small businesses. On any given day, there are millions of items available through auction-style and fixed-price trading. With millions of buyers and sellers worldwide, eBay offers localized sites in thirty countries around the world. There are more than 2 billion items under 30 main listing categories on eBay, which recently extends to real estate, travel, motor, job hunting market and etc. eBay’s revenue is mainly derived from different kinds of fees and commissions and also from direct advertising on the site. Industries in which eBay competes As the leading pioneer in the online retailing industry, eBay develops rapidly with the mass expansion geographically. The unique feature that makes it stand out is that eBay provides customized products with massive choices at a relatively cheaper price. This strategy is to differentiate product or service to combat competitive forces. Competitors, suppliers, and customers of eBay The top competitors are Amazon, Yahoo!, Google and Ubid. eBay’s successful principal has been emulating by competitors across the world. The...
Words: 717 - Pages: 3
...1. What is eBay’s problem? 2. Which marketing strategy was eBay following: market development or product development? Do you agree with it? 3. What decision-making process should CEO Donahoe utilize to make the decisions necessary to change the company’s product, customer approach, and business model? Pierre Omidyar founded a sole proprietorship in September 1995 called Auction Web to allow people to buy and sell goods over the Internet. The new venture was based on the idea of developing a community-driven process, where an organic, evolving, self-organizing web of individual relationships, formed around shared interests, would handle tasks that other companies handle with customer service operations. By May 1996, Omidyar had added Jeff Skoll as a partner and the venture was incorporated as eBay. Two years later, Omidyar asked Meg Whitman to direct corporate strategy to continue the accelerated growth rate of the company. Whitman brought to the company global management and marketing experience and soon became President and CEO. In almost no time, the company became one of the Web’s most successful sites, with 233 million registered users. By 2007, the average eBay user spent nearly two hours a month on the site—more than five times the time spent on Amazon.com SOLUTION 1. The previous CEO, Meg Whitman, had spent $6 billion to significantly expand the company through a series of acquisitions, such as Skype, PayPal, StubHub, Rent.com, Shopping.com, Stumbleupon, and...
Words: 801 - Pages: 4
...1. Limited financial regulation and enforcement The less robust financial regulation system in Asia presents corruption risks and legal compliance issues for American companies that must comply with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The ownership of wealth in Asia is generally highly concentrated, which contributes to the acceleration and agility of domestic businesses and the economy. Yet, this relative economic transformative speed encourages corruption and back-channel methodologies, and American companies operating under compliance protocols may be less competitive in this particular climate. For instance, the government in China established five to ten year plans for local businesses to grow and has high concentrations of wealth among members of the Communist Party and related business families. U.S. firms that try to enter or grow within this specific environment struggle and business-to-business contracts might not comply with FCPA as bribery to hasten or ease up processes may be involved from either side. 2. Currency convertibility issues and domestic economic manipulation The diverse banking and financial landscape of the region presents another challenge for U.S. enterprises. With no singular regulator, different trading centers and diverse currency rates, Asian nations can keep their currencies low to promote export growth. Economic zones like those in China and India challenge American enterprises, as they do not operate under national or even provincial regulations...
Words: 894 - Pages: 4
...eBay: “The world’s largest online marketplace”- A Case Study J.Gopalkrishnan* V.K Gupta** Abstract eBay, Inc. is the largest and most popular marketplace on the Internet, allowing members to buy and sell almost anything. Launched in 1995, about 147 million people now use eBay. An estimated 430,000 people in the United States make all or most of their living by selling on eBay. eBay’s online payment service, called PayPal, enables transactions nearly anywhere in the world. eBay proclaims “trust” between buyers and sellers as the key to the success of the marketplace. eBay is the “The world’s Online Marketplace”, which is its positioning statement, and it means many things about the company’s identity. It enables trade on local, national and international basis, with a diverse and passionate community of individuals and small businesses. eBay offers an online platform where millions of items are traded each day. The objective at eBay was to “to develop the work ethic and culture of eBay as a fun, open and trusting environment and to keep the organization focused on the big picture objectives and key priorities. The company market capitalization had surpassed that of even Amazon.com, making it the “world’s most valuable Internet retailer”. Pierre Omidyar, founder, is focused to achieve excellence in strategic management for improving the company’s strategy, sustaining the company’s growth and business performance, and potentially expanding from online auctions into general “etailing”...
Words: 3943 - Pages: 16
...Abstract In this case, it mainly defines how eBay enter the Chinese market and state problems why eBay failure problems in China compare to Tao Bao. We will introduce EBay, compare and contrast between eBay and Tao Bao, also, we talk about reasons failure in China. Introduction to EBay EBay which is a management that allows people from all over the world to buy and sell items, auctions and shopping online. EBay was founded on 4th September 1995 and by name Auction web of Pierre Omidyar in California. People can sell goods on EBay over the network. As an online auction site, eBay created a buyer but also the seller of unprecedented business model which was C2C mode. EBay has differences from traditional marketing because e Bay make a large number of small business and individuals through its sales platform to interact with small items, so creating amazing trading volume and profit. Also, its great value and market energy generated is sufficient to counterbalance the traditional business model. As a third party transaction, eBay itself does not directly involved in the transaction, but specifically for consumers with business information and value- added services. Through this e-commerce information intermediary platform, information can flow between the buyer and the seller each other. EBay collected information through selling; charged fees to users store and get huge revenue (Kathy Burns-Millyard, n.d.). Thus, eBay overthrown smaller flea market in the past, though the...
Words: 940 - Pages: 4
...eBay Goes on a Shopping Spree Introduction The author provides a case analysis of the eBay shopping spree assigned reading in the E-commerce: Business, Technology and Society textbook. The purpose of the research is to explain whether or not making so many acquisitions is a risky proposition. Additionally, the author will argue why eBay can successfully compete with its top three competitors. Finally, the researcher will explain why eBay is the perfect model for the integration of all the aspects of e-commerce. Questions Question #1: Explain whether or not you think making so many acquisitions is a risky proposition and why? The acquisitions are risky but support the eBay overall open source commerce platform called X.commerce. Therefore, the acquisitions are warranted as a calculated risk which enables merchants to more easily integrate online and offline commerce efforts (Laudon & Traver, 2012). Specifically, the acquisitions of RedLaser and Milo allow eBay to build services to help sellers offer goods locally, both online or through a mobile device, providing them with another channel for product distribution (eBay Annual Report, 2012). RedLaser allows consumers to scan barcodes in order to find the goods they are looking for in a variety of locations, both online and offline, while Milo enables local inventory to be viewed online or on a mobile device. The eBay acquisition strategy shows a strong commitment of connecting local retailers with shoppers. The...
Words: 1576 - Pages: 7
...sell their own personal items to anyone with internet access at any time. eBay is full of much strength such as their ability to globalize their brand. This is also one of their main weaknesses. Since eBay is an online business, anyone with internet can access the website. While they have the potential to reach out to everyone, not everyone uses the internet. One of the issues eBay faces is that the internet usage in Asia is very low especially considering over half the population resides there. E commerce was growing everywhere which definitely helps eBay’s business. One of eBay’s great accomplishments is their ability to acquire several other successful businesses. They don’t just take over random businesses because they can; they acquire businesses that can help them out with their own business. For example, PayPal goes hand in hand with the type of business eBay runs. It gives users a more secure way to use their website which consumers definitely appreciate. Along with their feedback forum which allows consumers to voice their opinions, the fact that both sides (buys and sellers) feed off one another and cause the popularity of the other side to rise really makes consumers feel like they are a part of the business. This is part of what makes eBay such a great success. Although they have their share of challenges with globalization and competition, they do so many things right. The idea of eBay originated from French born Pierre Omidyar, a computer science graduate from...
Words: 2598 - Pages: 11
...eBay was launched in 1995 as the first online auction by Pierre Omidyar with the intention of creating a person-to-person trading community based on a democratized, efficient market where everyone could have equal access through the same medium, the internet. The name eBay stood for “electronic Bay area” coined because Pierre’s initial concept was to attract neighbors and other interested San Francisco Bay area residents to the site to buy and sell items of mutual interest. eBay.com provided a venue for online sellers to auction or retail a wide variety of products ranging from computer parts, videos, books, movies, automotives and real estate to buyers from different locations. It brings together buyers and sellers every day on a local, national and international basis through a range of websites. It provides online marketplace for the sale of goods and services, as well as other online commerce, or ecommerce, platforms and online payment solutions to a diverse community of individuals and businesses. Effectively, eBay created a meeting place or community where different sellers and buyers can meet, exchange, trade and make business transactions with each other. The said virtual community marketplace concept destroys the physical barriers of time and geography in real world marketplaces. eBay’s business model is based not only on providing the infrastructure for the said community but also maintaining the trust and safety programs that ensured the integrity of the trading community...
Words: 3659 - Pages: 15
...that have caused eBay to struggle in Japan, China, and other Asian markets to determine if these mistakes could have been avoided. One factor that has made eBay to struggle in Asian countries was its failure to recognize the differences that existed between the Asian markets and market users and the American markets and markets users. This lack of understanding made eBay to use the strategies it had used in the US to enter the Japanese and the American markets. At the initial launch in Japan eBay set out to use collectibles this strategy was successful in the US market. This seemed to have failed as the Japanese user seemed to have preferred new products. The second mistake was eBay strategy to charge commission on each transaction as it did in the US. The Japanese market did not favor this as they were not used to pay commission or monthly charges. The second factor that made eBay to struggle in the Asian markets is its strategy of attempting to dominate the market by crashing all competition including the local. This proved to be a wrong kind of strategy as local competitors had a competitive edge over eBay. This was demonstrated by eBay earlier battle with Alibaba for the control of the Chinese market which eBay ended up losing badly to the local players. Due to the differences in market and business environments in Asia local companies that are used to these environments usually find an edge over foreign entrants and strategies such as that used by eBay have high probabilities...
Words: 709 - Pages: 3
...The Challenges Facing eBay in 2008: Abstract EBay in 2008 announced that its long-time president and CEO, Meg Whitman was to retire and pass on her responsibility to a new president and CEO, John Donahue. After the CEO transition, Donahue faced several significant challenges, including much slower growth in eBay's core online auction business, what to do to make the recent acquisition of Skype profitable, declining numbers of auction customers (chiefly due to increasing competition from Amazon's then new and popular auction site), and weaknesses in key economies across the globe. Competitive advantage is important role in developing sustain strategies. Using porter’s five forces, this paper analyses the five factors which affect eBay strategies. These factors are major in helping the company to identify the key issues and ways of coping with complexity and change. To determine how profitable and the position of eBay in the current market, a strategic group map, weighted competitive strength assessment and financial ratios analysis were conducted. The three analyses reveal that the company is still in good standing even though there is immerse competition which results in profit margin declines. Finally this analysis looks into problems that top management of eBay is facing. With acquisition of other companies that support the company’s core business and adjusting the current strategy to encompass the company’s globalization efforts in good time the company...
Words: 1825 - Pages: 8
...The original idea behind the acquisition of skype by eBay was to add value to the company's core operations by combining PC-based voice calls with online auction website’s which would boost communication between buyers and sellers. Even though this seems as a well though trough idea, eBay seemed to have bought Skype without implementing a strategy how to incorporate both systems. The most important flaw was the lack of clarity for its users. The Skype contact option could possible get more play if people actually knew about it and if eBay spent time on promotion. eBay's leadership never saw fit to aggressively bring the eBay, Skype and Paypal systems together. Examples of how to fix this could be simple and at very little engineering effort or cash cost. For example by adding a couple of strategically placed "call me now" or "send a few bucks" icons could make a big difference. Even a couple of quasi-discreet "call me now" and "send a few bucks" icons in strategic locations could make a world of difference, at very little engineering effort or cash cost. More information begets more trust, which then leads to more completed transactions, goes the theory. I suppose it could have worked, but that would have required an effort from the various management and engineering teams involved. Heck, call up the marketing department, too. Unfortunately, there never seemed to be a whole lot of that action going on. eBay seems to have bought Skype and set it on auto-pilot (destination:...
Words: 507 - Pages: 3
...which strengths and weaknesses are relevant to, and are capable of dealing with changes that take place in the business environment. Internal Resources and Capabilities Financial Resources Ebay is a Public Listed Company with corporate responsibilities to its shareholders. In 2006, it earned a gross profit of $4.7 billion and its total assets were $13.5 billion. This financial strength gives it opportunities to invest in activities to increase its financial strength through growth into related and other industries, global markets and also to investing in technology to increase customer satisfaction. It also allows it to invest in marketing to attract further customers and to invest in fraud prevention to protect its valuable intangible asset, its brand name. The Value Chain If organizations are to achieve competitive advantage by delivering value to customers, managers need to understand which activities their organization undertakes are especially important to creating value and which are not. Primary Activities The in bound logistics (Sales and Marketing) for Ebay is effectively the sales and marketing process attract customers to the ebay site so that there are products to sell and customers to buy their products. Attraction comes from the household brand name of Ebay and word of mouth...
Words: 4759 - Pages: 20
...Assess how these segments affect the corporation you chose and the industry in which it operates. EBay Inc. Is one of the leading internet companies in the world. Founded in 1995 by French Iranian Pierre Omidyar, eBay is employing more than 15500 people while generating total revenue of 11.65 billion dollars as of 2011 (eBay Inc 2011 Results). The company was founded in San Jose, California with a vision of connecting people rather then sells them goods. The company has now about a billion registered users and is the most popular shopping site on the Internet. EBay’s mission is to provide a global segment platform where practically anyone can trade practically anything. It features a variety of international sites, specialty sites, 50,000 categories of merchandise, and services that aim to provide users with the necessary tools for efficient online trading in both auction style as well as fixed price formats. Recently eBay added a Want It Now and Best Offer format providing new ways for shoppers to find and buy what they want on the website. Europe, Asia and cross-border trade are major areas of growth for eBay and an immense source of revenue. The firm offers localized sites in 24 countries. On any given day, millions of items are listed on eBay in thousands of categories. People from all over the world buy and sell on eBay (Hellriegel, D., & Slocum). EBay also acquired a number of other companies. These acquisitions include the following: • PayPal. This...
Words: 3026 - Pages: 13
...group assignmen Group 8 eBay- Fine- Tune its Strategy E-commerce assignment group: eBay ABSTRACT 1 EBay is one of the world leading companies, specializing in online retailing market, which has been really famous for its amazing business model and selling strategies at the point of several decades ago. It was once to be deemed as the monopolist in the online auction market business with so many successes. However, as the competition is becoming more and more intense, along with many new effective business strategies coming to the online retailing sector, the companies had committed in some mistakes as well as faced with a number of difficulties. It should and must change in order to keep up with the market speech. This paper is not only to give an overview of eBay’s company but to analyze deeply its current situations, of which providing the 8C’s, 5 forces and other relevant model analysis. In addition, the key reasons for eBay’s changes as well as key factors for its success had been identified. The recommendations for Vietnamese enterprises were also included. High Quality Class No. 2 Business Administration – Group 8 E-commerce assignment group: eBay TABLE OF CONTENT ABSTRACT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1 TABLE OF CONTENT ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 I. OVERVIEW OF EBAY-----------------------------...
Words: 6761 - Pages: 28
...goods and is one of the world’s most easily recognizable and well-known Web sites. eBay is a favorable proposition for smaller sellers to find markets for rare goods, or goods that are otherwise difficult to value. The company reduced posting fees for adding an item online and increased the collection fee for sold items.In August 2008, eBay lowered its listing fees for all sellers offering fixed-priced items under its “Buy It Now” format. EBay adjusted its search ordering system so that highly rated merchants appear first and receive more exposure. Roll out a rating system that made acquiring a high rating a much more time-consuming undertaking, favoring larger sellers with the time and energy to build a favorable rating. eBay’s growth strategy focused on expansion in geography and scope and on continuing innovation to enhance the variety and appeal of products in its sites. 2、Business model:brokerage model:Cyber Age through virtual network platform to bring together buyers and sellers of supply and demand information, coordination of their supply and demand and the payment of transaction costs market intermediaries Business strategy:People are basically good values:We believe that people are basically good、We recognize and respect each person is unique、 We need to encourage interaction with others empathy、We believe Integrity EBay Fine-Tunes Its Strategy Since its inception ,eBay has been synonymous with Internet auctions. It had much revenue in 1998 to 2008...
Words: 527 - Pages: 3
