2. How ‘eBay’ has differentiated from its major competitors?
There is a need for companies to review and realign their marketing strategy. This is done on an ongoing basis to ensure they remain competitive in the market they compete in. According to Sterling (2003:27) product life cycles have reduced, technology undergoes major step changes and with rapid frequency, markets are subjected to swift sporadic change. Furthermore, Damanpour (2010:1007) extends Sterling’s view by adding that, deregulation and increased global competition provides an extra dimension to having a competitive advantage and the economic benefit derived from it.
Moreover, Sustainable Competitive Advantage (Grewal & Levy, 2016) as referred to in Question 1 provides the
…show more content…
that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet’ (Shakespeare & Durband, 1985) from Rome and Juliet Act ii Scene ii, famously penned by William Shakespear does on the contrary not ring true in the marketing sense. The differentiation that is Brand Equity is one of eBay’s most valuable differentiatiors. A brand such as eBay and their payment support function PayPal differitiate them self. This is achieved by the brand being identified by the sellers and the buyers as a dependable source of product, reduced risk and a symbol of quality (Singh, 2014:113). eBay has become a household name, to the extent that the trade mark has become sort of a generic name for online …show more content…
Online presence involves more than just an engaging storefront or landing page. In Question 2, time was spend on unpacking the consumer decision process when shopping online, including aspects of the strong sense of community, trust and safety.
By the ongoing management of the safety and security concerns of the buyers and sellers, eBay has maintained the differentiator of a safer place to shop with anti-fraud programs, verified user practices. The strong sense of community is visible in the response and comment forms, where eBay community members share their shopping experiences.
Lastly for eBay to enhance their advantage they have over competitors, including Amazon, it is a prerequisite for eBay to continue, to strive for excellence in “service quality” (Ghobadian,et al., 1994). Superiority of service is considered an indispensable element of the long-term viability (Ghobadian, et al., 1994) of eBay’s differention from the
The object of this paper is to create a balanced scorecard for eBay based on the optimal approach for running an Internet-based auction business. Cases for both sides on whether eBay has met the metric goals as detailed in the balanced scorecard will be discusses along with a discussion on which argument was more compelling and the reasons why.
Since its inception in 1995, eBay has become the market leader and innovator in the online auction industry and its brand has accordingly become synonymous with e-commerce. Rapid growth and being the first to market served eBay’s competitive strategy of differentiation well; there was really nothing like it out there: unique service, broad range of products and global reach. In addition, their target audience was quite diverse-on the buyer side you had everyone from hobbyists and collectors to the bargain hunters; on the seller side you had antique dealers, casual sellers, mom-and-pop businesses selling unique items and finally large well-known corporations liquidating their inventory. Buyers and sellers are brought together in a manner where sellers are permitted to list items for sale, buyers to bid on items of interest and all eBay users to browse through listed items in a fully automated way. The items are arranged by topics, where each type of auction has its own category.
eBay has built an online person-to-person trading community on the Internet, using the World Wide Web. Buyers and sellers are brought together in a manner where sellers are permitted to list items for sale, buyers to bid on items of interest and all eBay users to browse through listed items in a fully automated way. The items are arranged by topics, where each type of auction has its own category.
Krishnamurthy, S. (2004). A comparative analysis of eBay and Amazon [PDF file]. Retrieved from http://faculty.washington.edu/sandeep/d/amazonebay.pdf
The major threat for eBay is PayPal, its payment system which records bank account detail of all its customers which can be targeted for online theft. As the number of customers increases, more chance in attracting online theft and fraud.
eBay To: Board of Directors From: Management Team Subject: ebay: Facing the Challenge of Global Growth Date: 29 October 2008 Executive Summary: Introduction: The goal is for E-bay to move into more international markets; such as Russia, Denmark, Vietnam, and Turkey. In addition, to focus on fixed-price options and advance opportunities with more sellers and specialty items. Discussed will be the strategic impact on the above identified issues, and the best direction that E-bay should move into for advancement in business growth and operating margins. Industry Analysis: World Wide Internet users are on the rise. People across the world are adapting to using the internet (see Exhibit 1). With a large increase eBay would be able to market across the world. The company would make a considerable investment to expand in countries such as Russia, Denmark, Vietnam, and Turkey. With the current investment in 33 countries, a minute step to invest in more would be a significant gain in market share. The most positive outlook on the international market expansion is that the barrier to entry is relatively low. Competitors will need to enter the market and be able to know how to attract buyers, what will be sold and how much, and how to control their budget. Competitors also lack the knowledge that is developed from years and years of experience of the on-line auction industry. E-bay has the tacit knowledge and experience to continue to grow in the international market. The online auction industry will also give much strength to suppliers. With the decrease in selling costs this will coerce competitors to obtain groundwork to increase the amount of supplier’s and entices new sellers by offering higher profits per sale.In return this will truly benefit E-bay. Competitor Analysis: Amazon, another high competitor, will maintain to deliver more value to the customer in terms of ease, selection, and availability, which in turn will continue its competitive pressure on eBay. EBay to fully win over competition will need to increase the fixed-price options. Yahoo and Amazon both offer products at fixed-prices which bringin a variety of clientele. Some that may be not searching for a bargain, but a particular hard-to-find item. The fixed-price trading is expected to grow to nearly 50% by the year 2010 (see Exhibit 5). This causes for a huge emphasis, because this is a growing market.
This report will attempt to critically analyse and assess the internal and external factors which effected the strategic decisions made by eBay. These strategic decisions consisted of the acquisitions with Skype and PayPal coupled together with an analysis on why eBay failed may have failed in expanding their online presence in eastern parts on the globe such as China.
eBay needs to transfer its competitive advantage in the online auction industry into the area of
A dominant position is held by eBay due to the trust that is built on the safety of the consumers and sellers. The trust is gained by consumers and sellers through the knowledge that eBay monitors fraud. This gives eBay user’s security and peace of mind knowing that eBay has such high security and a stringent and trustworthy trading regulations. Other than the trust built from security, eBay also maintains a dominant position due to it catering to such a large demographic. It caters to all wants and needs through its ability to sell a large range of items.
Finally one very important thing that eBay should focus on is security. Going global means more and more complex knowledge-based work is required. EBay had many issues with security and breaches in the past. Malicious hackers have been attacking eBay’s network. EBay does its best to keep their security to the best possible level however that is not enough (Dan, 2007) personal information is very valuable and should not be compromised at any cost. If these security problems keep going on eBay will loose the trust of its customers. It is very important for eBay to keep in mind that as they expand their market, so should they also invest in the best security possible to avoid any incidents in future or the incident can become a barrier to success in future.
When you think of online shopping one of the first things you think of is Amazon. Amazon has one of the best supply chain systems in the world. Launched in 1995 as an online bookstore, it is now the largest online retailer in the U.S. With an online inventory of 170 million products, Amazon has an innovative supply chain management system that creates a highly competitive advantage. This “tour” of Amazon will go over some of the operations and what makes Amazon the company it is.
I am aware of university policy on Academic conduct (published on Moodle) and I declare that this assignment is my own work entirely and that suitable acknowledgement has been made for any sources of information used in preparing it. I have retained a hard copy for my records.
eBay helps people trade practically anything on earth. eBay was founded with the belief that people are basically good. They believe that each of their customers, whether a buyer or a seller, is an individual who deserves to be treated with respect. eBay will continue to enhance the online trading experiences of all - collectors, hobbyists, dealers, small business, unique item seekers, bargain hunters, opportunistic sellers, and browsers. The growth of the eBay community comes from meeting and exceeding the expectations their customers.
In today’s era “INTERNET” is playing a significant role in our daily life. People can walk through the internet to one who is actually living on the different side of the planet, can send mails round the clock, search information & even buy things online. With this invention of internet there is a shift in traditional way of shopping. Now there is no need to open a physical store. One can be active at any time and place and purchase products and services. The number of users of internet is increasing day by day which means that online shopping is increasing. Various characteristics of online shopping is making it more convenient for the customers, as compared to traditional way of shopping such as the ability to view and purchase goods and
The Information revolution is changing our daily lives. With the rapid development of computer and internet, online commerce become quite common and plays an important role in the modern world. The online business has booming development in these few years. US online retail sales raised an average of 11% in the first three months of 2009 (“US Online Sales Up,” 2009). The growth of online sales may due to the growing number of consumers who shop online. In the case of Asia, survey reported 77.6% of Internet users have online shopping experiences in 2003 (as cited in To, Liao & Lin, 2007). Online shopping is very different from traditional shopping. Consumers cannot touch and check the product before purchasing it, which means they are at higher risk of fraud than traditional shopping. Consumers also have other concerns such as credit cards security of online shopping. Then questions should be raised: what is the advantage of online shopping? Why people shop online? In following paragraphs, the advantage of online shopping for the consumer and consumer’s motivation to shop online will be reviewed and discussed.