...Both Amazon and eBay are two most important competitors in the industry of online shopping. A short foreword and the background history of both companies will offer a base for the better understanding of how both the companies stand where they are today and in what manner they manage their respective companies. The financial synopsis will also be provided to provide an understanding of the better investing options in either of the two companies. Introduction When Amazon.com opened for business on July 16, 1995, it was nothing more than a few people packing and shipping boxes of books from a two-car garage in Bellevue, Wash. Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, had left New York City for the Pacific Northwest, using some of his time on the road to write the company's business plan. Books were packed on a table made out of an extra door they found lying in the new home — a practice the company continues today in spirit by making many of the office's desks out of doors. Now, on its 15th anniversary, Amazon can raise a toast to being one of the largest online retailers in the world, selling everything from tubas and golf carts to dishwashers and diapers. On the other hand in September, 1995, 28-year-old software developer Pierre Omidyar, who had previously worked with Claris developing software for Apple computers, sat down to write the code that would eventually evolve into what we know as eBay today. Originally called AuctionWeb and hosted on the same server as Pierre's page...
Words: 3367 - Pages: 14
...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
...obsequious and as a result of this obsequiousness, the term “cloud computing” is so broad that it can encompass anything from online storage products like Dropbox to entire online enterprise solutions provided by Amazon Web Services. While the term cloud computing may be obsequious, there is a reason IBM recently invested $3 billion to further research and development to benefit cloud computing and big data. ("IT Digest") Enterprise cloud networking is a relatively new technology, yet it is already available in multiple favors. For instance Amazon Web Services offers complete cloud solutions for anything from personal website and database solutions to full corporate solutions that range from simple storage solutions to user defined security groups. On the other hand, components provided by Cisco's Meraki division, offer complete network management as an easily accessible web based tool. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which is a part of the U.S. Department of Commerce defines Cloud Computing as “a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” (Mell & Grance, 2011) The NIST also lays out five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models. The five essential characteristics of cloud...
Words: 2967 - Pages: 12
...by : ID : Company Background Name | eBay Inc. | Logo | | Industries served | Internet, Online retailing | Geographic areas served | Worldwide | Headquarters | U.S. | Current CEO | John Donahoe | Revenue | $ 14.07 billion (2012) | Profit | $ 2.60 billion (2012) | Employees | 27,770 (2012) | Main Competitors | Amazon.com, Craigslist, Ubid, eBid Auctions, Google, Overstock.com and many others. | eBay is an international online marketplace with a global customer base of 233 million. It is a multibillion business operating in 37 countries. There are millions of items listed on eBay across thousands of categories, including antiques, toys, books, computers, sports and electronics, amongst many others. Strengths 1. World’s largest internet marketplace. eBay has more than 150 million live listings and more than 105 million active users globally in 37 countries. That makes eBay the largest marketplace online, having a great power over other online retailers. 2. Business model. eBay only acts as a middleman between sellers and buyers, who bid and sell items in eBay’s marketplace. Being a pioneer in online auctions, eBay had no competition and currently has only few strong direct competitors. Thus, company’s business model is a competitive advantage over such giant retailers as Amazon. 3. Economies of scale. In the beginning, eBay had to invest heavily to gain IT and customer relationship management (CRM) knowledge and skills, but since then...
Words: 839 - Pages: 4
...Case study eBay, Inc. And Amazon.com Introduction The case that we present concerns two of the most famous companies in the world: Amazon.com and eBay,Inc.. They have become so ubiquitous that probably there is not a household with a computer and internet connection in the world that hasn’t purchased at least one item from them or visited their websites at least once . In the following paragraphs we endeavor to analyze how these two companies have achieved this worldwide success and how they are defined by all as online giants and colossus. But above all, we will focus on how they differ from each other, what are their strengths and weaknesses, what their business model is and how it has changed over the course of time. We will discuss briefly the history of these two giants and explain how they deal and cope with this ever-changing market and business environment. We will start with the background of these two companies, and then analyze the differences in terms of business models, focusing on financial data, services provided, overall stakeholder value and customers’ perception. Background of eBay EBay was launched by Pierre Omidyar in 1995, and referring to his own words, his purpose was giving “ the power of the market back to individuals, not just large corporations”...and his goal was “pioneer new communities around the world built on commerce, sustained by trust and inspired by opportunities”. It is important for us to underline the words of Omidyar because...
Words: 4922 - Pages: 20
...most trafficked Internet retail destinations worldwide. Amazon is one of the first companies to sell products deep into the long tail by housing them all in numerous warehouses and distributing products from many partner companies. Amazon directly sells, or acts as a platform for the sale of a broad range of products. These include books, music, videos, and consumer electronics, clothing and household products. The majority of Amazon’s sales are products sold by Amazon, with the remaining amount from third-party sellers. Amazon was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It has direct international operations in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Since 2004, Amazon has begun to rapidly expand its web services arsenal. Products such as Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) and Amazon S3 (Simple Storage System), Amazon Route 53 have been large successes. Some of Amazon’s recent acquisitions include Shopbop (2006), Abebooks (2008), Zappos (2009), LOVEFiLM (2011). As of Q1 2011, Amazon has approximately 137 million active customers worldwide. It was also reported that there are 2 million merchants selling on Amazon equalling a third of the total listings. North America currently represents 55.4% of sales with the other 44.6% in the International market. HISTORY Figure 1 Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com Figure 1 Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com Amazon was founded in 1995, spurred by what Bezos called "regret...
Words: 3609 - Pages: 15
...distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, please click here or use the "Reprints" tool that appears next to any article. Visit www.nytreprints.com for samples and additional information. Order a reprint of this article now. » October 11, 2008 Amid the Gloom, an E-Commerce War By BRAD STONE WHEN the e-commerce giant eBay emerged from the last recession seven years ago with an aura of invincibility, its chief executive, Meg Whitman, boasted that “eBay is to some extent recession-proof.” As the online auctioneer’s revenues and stock price kept climbing, one of its primary rivals, Amazon.com, just limped along. How times have changed. Ms. Whitman, now co-chair of Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign, retired from eBay earlier this year as the company struggled with stagnation. Amazon, meanwhile, has emerged as one of the most vibrant and reliable retailers in the country. And in an unmistakable sign that Internet companies are indeed exposed to the gathering economic storm stemming from the credit crisis, Ms. Whitman’s successor, John J. Donahoe, laid off 10 percent of eBay’s 16,000 employees last Monday. Mr. Donahoe noted that eBay was already feeling the effects of the downturn. “This looks like it is going to be a more typical economic cycle that impacts consumer spending,” he said. “We are not immune.” That the economic crisis is washing up on Silicon Valley’s shores shouldn’t, perhaps, come as a surprise. Most tech companies are defenseless against waning...
Words: 4127 - Pages: 17
...6 Service Management (Chapter 9) 8 CHAPTER 4: CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR BUSINESS MARKETS 14 COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS 15 REFERENCES 17 Company overview EBay is the largest online marketplace in the world. EBay was founded by San Jose, California launched in 1995, by Pierre Omidya. It encourage members to establish business through eBay and members can buy products through online also. EBay has an online payment called PayPal, based on the study number of current active user in eBay are 152million，which are fee based user. Each day nearly 1/3 internet users in United States visit eBay，purchase and sell products in eBay marketplace. Because from EBay website offering multi products there. EBay user can save a lot of time to shopping, and sellers can easily promote their products through eBay. Proclaims “trust” between buyers and sellers as the key to the success of the marketplace Company mission, vision and goal The mission of Pierre Omidyar establish EBay with a simple idea which is "People are basically good". At eBay, our mission is to provide a global online marketplace where practically anyone can trade practically anything, enabling economic opportunity around the world. The objective of eBay is have fun, open trusting environment to develop the work ethics and culture ,to keep the organization focused on the objective and key priories. And the vision is to provide an online marketplace to buyer and sellers. The goal of eBay aim to increase...
Words: 4603 - Pages: 19
...and corporations to buy and sell a variety of products and services internationally. EBay makes money by charging fees to sellers, however it is free to shop and place bids. Till date EBay has presence including partnerships and investments, with more than 90 million users worldwide. At the start of 2002, they used PayPal as their online payment method. Background/History A computer programmer called Pierre Omidyar, started EBay in his living room in the year and month of September 1995 in San Jose, California. Apparently, the reason why EBay was officially established is because his wife, Pam, thought the thought of an auctioning site online was a great idea as she was trying to collect pez dispensers and meet other collectors online. Originally called AuctionWeb he wanted a central location to which people can buy unique products and bring together people with similar consumer interests. The first two days AuctionWeb released online, there were absolutely no bids. He then posted a notice of the auction website onto the NCSA, “What’s New Site” to attract people onto AuctionWeb. EBay then started to attract buyers by word-of-mouth like most online e-commerce websites. EBay then became popular as it combined business with personal passions. EBay started with a couple's personal interests, Pierre had not planned for EBay to becoming this multinational large-scale online business. The name EBay was chosen as second best, he originally wanted to name the website EchoBay, but that...
Words: 1332 - Pages: 6
...Amazon Inc. SeifAllah Marzouk – Ahmed Fadel – Mohamed Hajaij Introduction Amazon is the global leader in ecommerce. It directly sells a huge range of diverse products. Ranging from books to music to other physical goods and, their specialized asset, Kindle e-book. The company attains their high value-added differentiation by customer-focused information services such as holding online customers’ preferences and providing customization. One of the main competitive advantages of the company is unique bundling of several recourses such as service and distribution. Amazon was initially an online bookseller that directly shipped orders to customers; however, the company grew substantially and soon established a distribution network through which it could ship millions of items to customers all over the world at the lowest costs possible. Operating 10 websites in more than 45 countries now gives Amazon a strategic advantage in its diversity. Amazon was founded in 1994 in the state of Washington DC, USA. It strategically competes internationally by attaining the lowest prices amongst its competitors. With regards to book selling, Amazon’s biggest competitor is Barnes and Noble. While Barnes and Noble enjoys the spoils of selling in the physical world and online, Amazon is stuck in the cyber world (which evidently keeps costs down but doesn’t help with the sales)...
Words: 1297 - Pages: 6
...expertise that can assist a company in retaining a competitive advantage against its competitors. We are a staff of five experienced professionals who have successfully helped many organizations plan, create and achieve their objectives. We offer a professional team approach that can bring balance to any organization. The Manhattan Project Company’s consultants specialize in specific areas which include services such as SWOT analysis, sales and marketing, competitive analysis, finance, strategic planning and many others to assist any organization with their needs. We invite business owners and organizations to choose our services and let us show you how we can help you enhance your business. Introduction CanGo’s executive management has contracted with The Manhattan Project Company to provide consulting services in order to understand how to grow its business. We have looked at some areas within the organization and found a few key areas that will assist the company in reaching its goals. SWOT Analysis Strengths: CanGo has turn out to be one of the fastest growing online small business companies. CanGo has different variety of products to offer. They have labeled themselves as “the customer”. By doing this it permits them to keep the question “what do we want” in the front position of the attentions all while concentrating on recognizing the consumer’s requirements and requests. The employees at CanGo showed robust commitment in supporting company’s...
Words: 4033 - Pages: 17
...Andy Robeson Strengths: Market Leadership- eBay operates the leading online auction community on the Internet. Market leadership will benefit eBay in a number of ways. Firstly it will enable eBay to maintain a high level of brand awareness for the company and its offerings. Market leadership will also enable eBay to exert a greater influence on the marketplace. For example, the company would be in a better position to combat any new entrants into the market. Intellectual Property- eBay’a intellectual property such as its trademarks, copyrights, patents and domain names will help to give the company a competitive advantage over its rivals in the market place. This in turn will help eBay to generate increased sales, profits and market share. Brand- The strength of the eBay brand name is increasing. The brand is now becoming more mainstream, as it benefits from an increase in both brand awareness and brand recognition. The eBay brand name is also becoming better known internationally as the company expands its international presence to cover more markets. The increased equity of the eBay brand name will help the company to generate increased sales and profits. Double-Digit Growth- A double-digit growth in sales has been seen in a number of the company’s eight core product categories. In the past year, eBay Motors saw its revenues increase by 88% year-on year, while eBay Media and eBay Collectibles posted a 52% and a 23% yearon- year increase in revenues respectively...
Words: 1525 - Pages: 7
...1. Problem Statement Since Amazon was established in 1994 it has focused on growth – “get big fast”. This focus on growth of number of clients was based on the assumption that to establish Amazon as the biggest internet retailer in the world secured long term profitability instead of short term profitability. The growth had been carried out through expansion in markets and an aggressive acquisition strategy. In 2000 the investors started to change focus and while they had been willing to support the expansion for market share they now started to focus on profitability. Amazon therefore needed to change strategy and adapt to the need for running a profitable business with the new watchwords “march towards profitability”. But the question is whether Amazon can change the company around and become profitable and how they can achieve it. Some of the questions which need to be answered is: • What should Amazon do next? • Should it continue its international expansion, or perhaps retrench to allow for more profitable operations? • Should it add product categories or cut back to its Books, Music and Video core? • Could Amazon use its brand strength and sophisticated personalization algorithms to individually price its way into the black? • Could Amazon steal a page from Wal-Mart and focus on supply chain management to part the sea of red ink? • Alternatively, should Amazon return to its virtual roots and outsource...
Words: 2500 - Pages: 10
...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. Whitman expanded the company’s operations and spent more than $6 billion to acquire companies, such as Internet phone operation Skype, online payments service PayPal, ticket reseller StubHub, property rental and roommate search firm Rent.com, comparison shopping site Shopping.com, Web site recommender Stumbleupon, and 25% interest in Craigslist. Expansion and diversification provided revenue and profit growth plus stock price appreciation. Although financial analysts wondered how all these businesses would fit together, Whitman argued that she wanted eBay to be everywhere users wanted to be. At developer conferences, company representatives unveiled new services that let buyers shop for and purchase eBay items outside of the core eBay.com site. By 2008, eBay was in trouble. Its stock price had lost half its value over the past three...
Words: 503 - Pages: 3
...The Confessions of Online Shopaholics Introduction We all know that we are in the midst of a social, business, and cultural revolution. Our generation today is often termed as “technology savvy”, especially now that the internet has new revolutionary trends. Nowadays, businesses are not just using databases but also the internet. Since 1995, electronic commerce (e-commerce) has grown in the United States from a standing start to $310 billion retail, travel, and media business and a 3.3 trillion worth total of business-to-business databases, bringing about enormous changes in business firms, markets and consumer behavior quickly. Economies and business firms around the globe got affected rapidly. Today, e-commerce has become the platform for new, unique services and capabilities that are not found in the physical world. In 2011, e-commerce is entering a new period of explosive entrepreneurial activity focusing on social networks, and the mobile digital platform created by smartphones and netbooks (Laudon, 2012). As stated by Rayport (2002), “We are in a revolution that is enabled and accelerated by technological change and at the center of this change is the internet, and, more specifically, economies” (p 2). Whenever we read the morning papers, we observe interesting stories on companies helping the growth of the internet and so the day goes-with constant stimuli related to the internet, e-commerce and the new economy- as we work, shop, dine, or drive through our...
Words: 8514 - Pages: 35
