...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-----------------------------...
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...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...
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...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...
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...Case study of eBay As an efficient and flexible sales channel, online auction businesses are becoming an internationally successful phenomenon. People can use auction sites as a market to conduct sales, to liquidate unwanted inventory, as well as to reaching markets that would otherwise be too expensive to reach. However, there are potential problems with feedback systems in the OAM, in other word, seller incentives to provide high quality products under the case of asymmetric information, for example buyers are not able to discern product quality prior to making their purchase decisions while sellers are aware of the quality of their product offerings, as a result dishonest or low-quality sellers will drive honest and high-quality sellers out of market. Obviously, beside the transaction cost of determining the required good is available on the market, which has the lowest price, there are other transaction costs within the online auction business for both sellers and buyers. From seller’s perspective, their decision on the which auction service to use are depended on following factors: cost of listing an auction item and the chance that a product will be sold. In the case of eBay and Yahoo!Auction, eBay charges sellers both listing fee and a percentage commission of the item sold. Yahoo!Auction, on the other hand, offers free listing. However, Yahoo!Auction suffers from a much lower successful transaction probability than eBay. Thus, a seller should trade off between balance...
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...yDiscussion Questions 1. What are the key success factors for eBay? eBay is an efficient way to reach consumers and other businesses. Some also sees it as an opportunity to sell bulk lots of unsold inventory by helping buyers get the best price for their items and letting customers decide the price they want to pay for products, it had created a pricing revolution. eBay itself also doesn’t buy any inventory or own the products on its site. It earns its money by collecting a fee for the auction listing, plus commission when the sale is completed. Although it started from the auction site, it has also evolved to offer a fixed-price “buy it now” option to buyers who didn’t want to wait for an auction and were willing to pay the price set by the seller. Now, eBay is positioning itself as a global giant: part international swap meet, part clearing house for the world’s manufacturers and retailers. 2. Where is eBay Vulnerable? What should it watch out for? Although eBay is the largest online shopping site, it stills has to be aware of the changes/problems in technology as it is growing fast everyday. It also has to be aware of the credibility of the sellers; are they trusted enough to be selling on the site? In case anything happens, the site is going to pay for the damage losses. Sometimes, the consumers could change their buying patterns and priorities, so this is another thing the site should watch out for. More tricky problem, the owner should be updated in the changes...
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...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”...
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...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...
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...What eBay has Done For The E-commerce Business? CITN120-Introduction to Networking If you’re a consumer looking to buy or sell an item or maybe catch a fantastic bargain, you have probably heard of eBay. The company’s founder Pierre Omidyar started his journey on September 3, 1995, as a simple home page and a broken laser pointer and created something that had never been done before. Pierre simply intended the listing on his web page of a broken laser pointer to be a test more than a serious offer to sell at auction. He was shocked when he received a response, “I’m a collector of broken laser pointers,” and sold the item for $14.83. When Pierre received this answer back he knew that he had created something big and transitioned from one of commerce, buying and selling things, to one of e-commerce, connecting people around the world together over the internet. In 1996 Pierre and his hand picked business team set out with their vision, which was to create the first online auction website for consumers to buy and sell their items. Since the start up, eBay has become the market leader and pioneer in the on-line auction industry and its brand name has become synonymous with e-commerce. eBay doesn’t actually sell any goods itself, it is simply a meeting place where the merchandise is sold and delivered by third party sellers that are not employed in any way by eBay. This unique e-commerce business gives sellers a place to reach buyers, and gives buyers access to the world’s...
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...EBAY INC FORMReport) 10-K (Annual Filed 01/31/14 for the Period Ending 12/31/13 Address Telephone CIK Symbol SIC Code Industry Sector Fiscal Year 2065 HAMILTON AVENUE SAN JOSE, CA 95125 408-376-7400 0001065088 EBAY 7389 - Business Services, Not Elsewhere Classified Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) Services 12/31 http://www.edgar-online.com © Copyright 2014, EDGAR Online, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Distribution and use of this document restricted under EDGAR Online, Inc. Terms of Use. UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION Washington, D.C. 20549 Form 10-K [x] ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2013 . OR [] TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 For the Transition Period from to . Commission file number 000-24821 eBay Inc. (Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter) Delaware (State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization) 77-0430924 (I.R.S. Employer Identification Number) 2065 Hamilton Avenue San Jose, California (Address of principal executive offices) 95125 (Zip Code) Registrant's telephone number, including area code: (408) 376-7400 Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934: Title of each class Name of exchange on which registered Common stock The Nasdaq Global Select Market Securities registered pursuant...
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...TARGET MARKET EBay has a very wide range of target marketing mainly because of the wide range of product available at it’s website. Millions of items like collectibles, appliances, computers, equipment and many more miscellaneous items are listed, bought or even sold on a daily basis. In other word, eBay generally target online auction and shopping communities. However, eBay also has business strategies to target specific segment of the market. From the entire wide range of items available, eBay originally was set up to promote and sell antique and collectibles. This causes eBay to focus more on this segment market. Another key market segment for eBay would be the car and motor enthusiast. This is because of the unexpected popularity with the users, which is the second most visited segment on the site. Due to this, eBay has been focusing more on these two segments as their primary market target. KEY SEGEMENTS Antiques & Collectibles Started out to be selling collectibles and antiques with auction-based online sales. These targeted markets are usually antique lovers that are willing to bid very high for a rare item. EBay has established them very well in the market, which until today, antiques, and collectibles generates the highest sales gross. Motor lovers Using credibility of leading car collector Kruse Inc., eBay expanded its categorical offerings with eBay Motors. EBay Motors became one of its most successful target segments with $2,500M Global Gross...
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...the fabled "dot com bubble" and was influenced by many of the forces that made other technology and Internet IPOs so (in)famous. eBay's revenue growth was initially 30 percent or more year over year, making eBay one of the breakout winners of the dot com race. In recently, eBay growth has slowed year over year, then with an increasing proportion of overall growth coming from its payments business and an ongoing process of reorganization and strategic change coming to characterize the marketplace business. Some of the declines and difficulty in this latter sector are due to increasing competition from competitors, most notably Amazon.com and Google. In a few year back, economic conditions have also taken a toll, with revenue, profit, listing volume, and share price all falling through 2008 and into 2009 before something of a turnaround took hold on the strength of new strategic orientations both in core businesses and marketplace platform structure, pricing, and policy. The changes implemented during John Donahoe's tenure have proven to be controversial as shifts in rules and fees structures and an increased orientation toward high-volume, fixed-price retail channel selling have alienated portions of eBay's traditional community even as the competitive landscape around eBay stiffens. The recent turnaround in critical metrics was prefaced by a 2008 restructuring and a matching round of layoffs that appear to have served their purpose, at least for the moment. eBay's 2011 acquisition...
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...Q1 | Why has eBay become successful and diverse online market place? a) What is eBay? Who is the founder?b) Success story of this company in diverse online marketplace i. How and why it become successful? ii. How eBay position itself in the E-commerce marketplace? | 9-11 | Q2 | Visit the eBay website (http://www.ebay.com) to help you answer, and check out their many trading categories, specialty sites, international sites, and other features. [You can provide the screen-shot of the web pages to show every of the feature] a) What is trading category? What they have on this in their website? b) What is specialty site? What they have on this in their website? c) What is international site? What they have on this in their website? d) What other features do they have in their website? Analyze each feature in term of its purpose and business values e) Is there Customer Relationship Management technology in their website? | 12-24 | Q3 | Why do you think eBay has become the largest online seller of certain other products, like computers and photographic equipment? a) Based on the eight initiatives/ competitive advantages that you have learned in Chapter 2 | 25-26 | Q4 | Is eBay’s move from pure consumer-to-consumer auction market place to inviting large and small businesses to sell to consumers and other businesses, sometimes at fixed process, a good long-term strategy? a) What is pure consumer-to-consumer auction market place for eBay? b) What is...
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...ABSTRACT eBay Inc. is an American multinational internet consumer-to-consumer corporation, headquartered in San Jose, California. It was founded in 1995, and became a notable success story of the dot-com bubble; it is now a multi-billion dollar business with operations localized in over thirty countries. The company manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide. Millions of collectibles, decor, appliances, computers, furnishings, equipment, domain names, vehicles, and other miscellaneous items are listed, bought, or sold daily on eBay. eBay maintains a number of specialty sites including the discussion boards, groups, answer centre, chat rooms, and reviews and guides. eBay's mobile offerings include SMS alerts, a WAP site, Java ME clients, and mobile applications for Windows Phone, Android OS and Apple iPhone. 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 “e-tailing”, and to become “the world’s largest online mall”. The objective of this report is to observe and analyse the various aspects of eBay so as to understand the features incorporated by the organisation. eBay has become a phenomenon. It has changed how people think about the junk they once might've sold at garage sales. It has...
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...*Institute of Management, Nirma University of Science & Technology, Ahmedabad. E-mail: jaya_gopalkrishnan2000@yahoo.com **Indian Institute of Management, Indore 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...
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...growth of the Internet (Yao, 2009). Online auction industry mainly consists of eBay, Yahoo, and Amazon. Also, there are many smaller online auction websites that target on specific products and market segments. The risk of entry by potential competitors in online auction industry is moderate because of the small initial capital and technology investments required. The bargaining power of buyers is low and bargain power of suppliers is high. The threat of substitutes is moderate as online auction industry has unique person-to-person business model. The rivalry among existing firms is high due to the high demand volume and high operating cost, but none of them will lower prices to compete in price wars. eBay is the current leader of online auction industry with 94.5 million active users and total $9.2 billion net revenue at the end of 2010 (eBay, 2010). eBay has been successful because it focuses on person-to-person auction platform that allows buyers and sellers to access and make efficient trades. Yahoo and Amazon, however, effectively consolidated their resources from all of their business sections to create their strategic advantages. For instance, Amazon had consolidated its 8.3 million registered customers and emailed them all at once, promoting its auction insurance program when it launched its auction site (Yin, 2007). Introduction Online auction industry mainly consists of eBay, Yahoo, and Amazon. Porter’s five forces analysis indicates that online auction industry...
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