Business Overview eBay is a business which was founded in 1995 by an entrepreneur called Pierre Omidyar. The main focus of the business is eBay.com, an online auction/shopping website, which offers consumer to consumer sales and business to consumer sales services, via the internet.
The business have also invested into many other companies/services, including PayPal, Skype and Gumtree. eBay are one of the main examples of the ‘Dot-com bubble’ from the late 1990’s, and are now a huge company who operate across many different countries and have a net worth of around $60 billion. eBay.com is currently the 24th most popular website in the world, and they have websites localized in over 30 countries across the world
From Small Beginnings
In September of 1995, Omidyar figured out a gap in the new emerging online market. He realized that so far there was no real online marketplace for selling between individuals. He wanted to create what he described as a “Perfect Market”.
Omidyar set up the business in his living room, and his first official sale was of a broken laser pointer. The website originally had the name of AuctionWeb, -until 1997. He kept the business as a hobby for the first few months, until his internet service provider started charging him extra (from $30 a month, up to $250) due to the extreme volume of traffic on the website.
Due to Omidyar being charged, he decided that now would be time to convert the website into a business, and started charging customers a
EBay has paved the wave in this industry and being in a billion dollar industry making things happen to benefit consumers in many ways.[5]
Ebay is one of the world's largest e-commerce and multinational corporation. Here are some facts, the company was launched in 1995 as " Auction Web," on labor day weekend by Pierre Omidyar. Later the name was officially changed to ebay in 1997 because many customers and media coverage referred the website as ebay. It has over 200 million registered users by 2015 and branched out into twenty five countries. There are thirty five thousand employees working on eBay in that 42% are female. The company net revenue by 2014 is 17.9 billion dollars. There are about 25 million sellers and the number of items listed in the market places are 800 million. The daily search on eBay is 250 million and the hourly search is 11 million. 60% of company revenue comes from
With the development of latest IT technologies, it started heavily focusing on information & communication technology (ICT). Among other technologies it focused especially on Big Data. This had a major role in making this company what it is today. They also used big data to improve its relationship with its customers and to give them more relevant search results which was far superior then its peers. They focused on collecting its consumer surfing habits to evolve a very predictive and relevant user experience. Finally, it can be said that ebay.com owe its success
eBay Inc (eBay) is an e-commerce corporation founded in 1995 and headquartered in California. eBay is one of the largest online marketplace with over 149 million active buyers globally (eBay Inc 2015). According to Nielsen (2014), on The Australian Online Landscape Review, eBay was in the top 10 online brands with approximately 7 million unique audiences.
EBay Inc is a worldwide online retailer and auction industry that operates a web-based marketplace for all individuals to buy or sell anything online. EBay operates a consumer to consumer (C2C) platform in its business model where it allows individuals to communicate with each other interactively. EBay uses information technology to perform and operate its business model. EBay was very successful in using information technology in its business model as an online retailer. Information technology is a terminology where computers and telecommunication equipments are being used to store, retrieve, and transfer data. Being said, eBay, who operates an online auctioning and retailing industry, uses information technology to achieve its business goal in customer relationship management, communication, data management and also inventory management.
Many people in this new media generation is relying on constant innovation in technology and the power of the internet. eBay is an internet marketplace platform where users can easily manage their online shopping or online selling. eBay’s online shopping replaces old media where the items used to be auctioned or bought on the television screen by a phone call. With the internet being a powerful source in today’s world, people can easily become a part time e-commence entrepreneur in the eBay community by selling their old vintage items, collectibles, and rare products to generate side revenue. It is important for us to understand how eBay as an internet retailer can positively or negatively affect our community. eBay also contributes economical, sociological, technological, and moral perspectives in modern society.
In September 1995, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar launched AuctionWeb, an open marketplace for buyers and sellers. Working alone for almost a year, Omidyar hired his first employee in June 1996, and by July, AuctionWeb had already sold $7.2 million worth of merchandise. In September 1998, eBay went public.
eBay Incorporated, a US company headquartered in San Jose, California, provides online marketplaces for the sale of goods and services, online payments services, and online communication offerings to individuals and business in the United States and internationally. With more than 90 million active users globally, their collective impact on e-commerce is staggering: In 2009, the total worth of goods sold on eBay was $60 billion — $2,000 every second. The business strategy of eBay is exemplified in the company’s mission statement, “eBay’s mission is to provide a global trading platform where practically anyone can trade practically anything”.
The e-commerce and online auctions industry is highly fragmented, with a large number of independent players occupying 78.2% of the market. With a low concentration, the two major players, Amazon and eBay, account for only 21.8% of the e-commerce and online auctions market. This indicates low barriers to entry as it not difficult for prospective competitors to establish an online shopping platform. Additionally, there are few specific skills required to participate in the market. Existing operators possess a number of competitive advantages over new entrants, such as reputation of product quality and consumer loyalty, while providing secure payment methods that have been enhanced for years. Furthermore, they also
E-Commerce powerhouse Ebay is known internationally as a leader in the market. The company was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 in San Francisco Originally eBay went by the name Auction Web and was launched with the purpose of enabling site users/consumers with the ability to trade unique items with each other. Under eBay’s business model, of the time a seller would place an item on eBay’s site with a minimum bid set for the buyer and the duration specified for auctioning that item. The services were provided by eBay free of charge. The free services however, did not last long as the site quickly gained popularity and garnered a lot of web traffic. As interest in eBay and conducting business on the site began to grow eBay started
- eBay was the first industry to introduce an innovating concept for pricing. (auctions) This allowed customers to determine at what price they are willing to pay for an item. The best advantage that eBay has is that it doesn’t rely on inventory or prices. It provides a service where people can choose whether to buy or sell an item. Since it is an online business there is also distinctive advantage on growth and profits since it is basically a global business. Also, you don’t have to pay to use eBay. Anyone with a good internet connection can have access.
One of the most successful and leading brand which adopted internet as its primary distribution channel is Ebay. It reaped hoard of revenue by employing this strategy. Ebay is an online marketing system which provides producers all around the world with the opportunity to sell the products to the global community. Ebay adopted this strategy because internet itself is the tool which connects the world together creating a global community. It saw the opportunity in the untapped market on the internet and
eBay was founded in Pierre Omidyar 's San Jose living room back in September 1995. It
The fact that eBay does have some successful competition means that its strategic capability has become less unique. There is a hint in their competitor profile that innovation and perhaps adaptability to different cultures as they innovate is not core to eBay and something which has been developed more successfully by others working within their own national culture. Indeed, eBay rules in its own territory of North America and in Europe. The search capability of eBay also means that niche players do not really make sense, whereas the consumer trust that comes from being a big player is worth everything when trading on-line, as is the notion that whatever you want it will be on eBay because of its size. Thus, the so-called network effects of eBay (the bigger the company, the more successful it will be) and its first mover advantage that has led to this level are key to its success.