Marketing Essay Sample: eBay Business
eBay was launched in mid-1995 by Pierre Omidyar as an Internet auction venture. Since then, this company has become “The World’s Online Marketplace” as its official positioning statement suggests (Armstrong, Adam and Denize, 2014). Within one year of eBay’s functioning, about 41,000 users registered on eBay, trading $72 million worth of goods annually (Gopalkrishnan and Gupta, 2007). In 1999, eBay introduced fixed pricing structure instead of open-auction pricing system that was used before.
In 2007-2008, along with the increase in competitiveness in the computer and dot com market and emergence of economic recession, eBay has started to experience problems in the organizational performance (Fowler, 2009). For this purpose, the company has further integrated fixed pricing strategy (Business Week, 2009). With regard to the product, the company has planned and implemented a new customer relationship management strategy to focus on the needs of customers (Business Week, 2009).
Likewise, eBay has always been able to respond to the new trends in the technological market. For example, recently eBay has purchased PayPal (43 % of revenues as of 2012) for 1.2 billion, thus entering digital payment sector (Smart Insights, 2013). Likewise, eBay has entered mobile payment market via PayPal affiliate with its own chip and pin service (FT, 2013). In the context of place aspect of marketing mix, currently eBay has 37 websites in 36 countries (Information Resources Management Association, 2015). This means that in terms of its strategy to build the largest online marketplace, eBay has followed aggressive diversification and internationalization. This has allowed sustaining a competitive position within the computer market and improve overall organizational performance. The revenues have grown from $ 8.54 billion in 2008 up to $ 17.9 billion in 2014 (Statista, 2014)…
