In 1995 computer programmer Pierre Omidyar established eBay Inc. (eBay) from his living room in San Jose, California. He created a simple prototype of an auction site on his personal website and called it Auction Web, then let people list items for auction. He was amazed at the number of buyers and sellers that his site attracted and he soon had to set up a separate site devoted to auctions. By charging sellers for posting their auction items, and taking a small percentage of each sale, the company made money simply by supplying a place for buyers and sellers to meet. Business grew through word of mouth. A Feedback Forum was added to allow buyers and sellers a way to rate each other for honesty and reliability. Branching out from collectibles, the site quickly expanded into a vast range of items, including electronics, home furnishings and appliances, and cars and other vehicles. In 1996, Omidyar hired Jeff Skoll as his first employee and the company’s first president. Skoll is credited with writing a business plan that took eBay from a start-up to a sensational success. In 1996, Auction Web hosted 250,000 auctions. In the first month of 1997, it hosted two million. Omidyar changed the company 's name to eBay in 1997. In 1998 former Hasbro executive Meg Whitman was hired to serve as president and CEO. Whitman brought on a diverse management team with individuals from companies such as Pepsi and Disney. EBay went public in the fall of 1998. The share price almost tripled on
Ebay, as a company itself, fits more in the category of an oligopoly, which is actually pretty common in any market. Other alternative websites include Yahoo!, Amazon, and Quibids, but there are only a small number of them, certainly not hundreds as in monopolistic competition. Also, eBay is interdependent on the few other auction website companies, competing with the fees they charge, as well as quality of customer support, and buyer/seller reliability. Another characteristic of eBay that coincides with it being considered an oligopoly is the fact that it has numerous entry barriers. It’s such a large company with many restrictions, and it would be hard for an up and coming substitute auction website to break into the market and compete with eBay or the other top companies in the industry. (6)
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]
Dembosky, A. (2012). Ebay moves beyond its dotcom roots. Available:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/df3723ca-1773-11e2-8cbe-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2EbzDqb5Y. Last accessed 10th Dec 2012
In proposing eBay as publicly traded on an open market organization in recognizing prospect livelihood, complete model is great and fits development without the requirement for progressing costly base or staffing costs. Gained account recognizes substance which unites suppliers and clients. Figures out how to maintain a set-up where request and supply shows value determination.
Ebay is primarily service providers who connect the sellers and buyers by providing platform to sell and buy any goods.
EBay hosts an online marketplace where consumers and merchants can come together to trade goods in a variety of ways. One way this can occur is through Auction-type listings. This process consist of listing an item that is available for others to bid on for a specified amount of time; the person to bid the highest wins at the end of the allotted time. There is also a “buy-it-now” option where an individual can immediately purchase the desired item directly from the seller. There is an array of categories you can shop from and consist
Read the case carefully and answer the following questions: 1.Till 2005, eBay EachNet was the leader in the Chinese e-commerce market, controlling more than half of it. But eBay EachNet soon lost its market leadership position to Taobao.com (Taobao). In this context, analyze the reasons that can be attributed to Taobao’s edge over eBay. 2.a. To enable people to trade with each other, Pierre Omidyar created a marketplace in September 1995 which was later called eBay. By mid 1997, eBay received one million page hits per
In 1998, when a corporate headhunter initially drew nearer her to lead the online closeout organization eBay,
Jeffrey Bezos, formerly a senior vice president for D. E. Shaw & Company, founded Amazon.com in 1994. D. E. Shaw is a Wall Street-based investment bank, and Mr. Bezos was assigned to find good Internet companies in which to invest. During the summer of 1994, he stumbled across a
On July 16, 1995, Amazon.com went live to the world and Jeff told the testers to spread the word that it was open. Within 30 days, the company had sold books to all fifty states and forty-five foreign counties. By September, the site had sales of $20,000 a week.
On Labor Day, Monday, September 4, 1995, Pierre Omidyar, a 28 years-old software developer, who previously worked for Claris, develops software for Apple computers started eBay from his home. Omidyar first called his website Auction Web because he was told that was his first choice for a website name with the concept of auctioning. The first item he placed to auction was a broken laser pointer. He received a bid and sold for $14.83. Omidyar was very shocked when the item sold and realized that he had created something extraordinary. The website began to grow and gain great familiarity. Omidyar tried to register the site under the domain echobay.com. It was already in usage, so Omidyar decided to shorten the name to eBay.com which originated from Echo Bay Technology. The website is now ready for business and later became a leader in Internet revenue. Items on eBay are listed by categories and anyone with an eBay account can bid on the items. You can find anything on eBay, including cars, real estate, collectibles, concert tickets, CDs, clothing, DVDs, artwork and etc. When items are listed for auction on eBay it can be seen by millions of people all over the world.
The market eBay takes place in is primarily the Internet market. Around 1995 the Internet market was just beginning. “there will be more than 500 million users by 2003 and a rapid increase in e- commerce turnover, rising from US$500 billion worldwide in 2001 to more than US$3 trillion in 2004” (Fichter, 2003) EBay was a pioneer in Internet market until competitors such as Amazon and Wal-Mart began to sell products online as well. “Online marketing is now the fastest-growing form of marketing” (Armstrong, 2013). The difference between eBay and its
In concert with high rivalry in the industry, the ecommerce industry has seen large brick-and-mortar retailers making moves to catch up with Amazon. Amazon came to dominate the ecommerce industry through technology, innovation, a laser focus on customer experience and efficient operations. The company had a first mover advantage, but today, as traditional retailers look at growth in the ecommerce market and see it beginning to chip away at traditional retail’s share of the overall market (Exhibit 3), these companies are making moves to further increase their own sophistication. In October, Best Buy brought in former Expedia president, Scott Durschlag, to head its ecommerce business and to “boost its online transformation.” In 2011, Wal-Mart acquired Koomix, hoping to apply “artificial intelligence to commerce.” It also hired the well-regarded Silicon Valley engineer who was instrumental in the development of eBay’s infrastructure as its Chief Technological Officer. Wal-Mart and eBay both announced this fall that they
The company eBay Inc. is an American multinational Internet consumer-to-consumer corporation. Founded in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar in San Jose, California, it is now a multi-billion dollar business with operations localized in over thirty countries including China and India. It’s main enterprise is eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website that allows people and businesses to buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services internationally. Millions of collectibles, décor, appliances, computers, furnishings, equipment, domain names, vehicles, services, intangibles and other miscellaneous items are listed, bought, or sold daily on eBay. Anything can be auctioned on the site as long as it is not illegal and does not violate the eBay’s Prohibited and Restricted Items policy.
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.