Verified Document

Ebay, Inc. Company Overview Founded On Labor Essay

eBay, Inc. Company Overview

Founded on Labor Day weekend in 1995, eBay now operates the world's largest online trading community. The first sale by founder and computer programmer Pierre Omidyar was a broken laser pointer that was slated for the trash can; he sold it for $14.83. As of December 2010, 94.5 million users were active globally buying and selling practically anything. That user list compares to 90.1 million the previous year end. eBay brings together a diverse community of individual and small business buyers and sellers that trade goods worth more than $2,000 every second. In 2010, the total value of goods sold on eBay was $62 billion. (eBay, 2010)

With a highly active corporate development function, eBay has acquired such innovative businesses as PayPal (online payments), Bill Me Later (deferred payments for customers such as Borders, Continental Airlines and Walmart.com), Shopping.com (comparison shopping), Rent.com (home and apartment rentals), StubHub (online ticket sales), and Gmarket (Asia e-commerce), which have put the company in the global lead in the e-commerce and payments business. Recent activity also bodes well for the company to become a player in the area of services designed for hand-held mobile devices. (eBay, 2010)

In March 2011, eBay revealed its intent to purchase e-commerce behemoth GSI Commerce valued at $2.4 billion, one of the largest acquisitions ever for eBay. This move will strengthen the operations of eBay Marketplaces as well as PayPal. When finalized in August 2011, this combination should serve to increase cross-selling opportunities, especially with larger merchants. (Hoovers, 2011)

Through its subsidiaries and affiliates, eBay operates in about 40 markets worldwide through websites that are focused on Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, the Philippines, New Zealand, Malaysia, India, Hong Kong, China, and Australia in greater Asia/Pacific. In Europe, the company covers the U.K., Turkey, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Poland, the Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, Germany, France, Belgium, and Austria. eBay reaches Mexico, Canada, Brazil, and Argentina in the Americas. In China, eBay has formed an alliance (it owns 49%) with TOM Online, the internet...

In all, eBay does over half its business outside the United States. (S&P, 2011)
Corporate Strategy

eBay has stated its goal to create a truly global marketplace, providing a faster, easier, and safer trading experience for its users. In order to accomplish that goal, eBay must create a system that is efficient, abundant and redundant. The company still has nightmares about the "brownout" of 1999, when a service interruption persisted for 22 hours. Growth has increasingly come through acquisitions of savvy local partners with an increased focus on the international front. These acquisitions accelerate the "network effect" which means that an online service becomes more valuable to its users as the number of users increases. (S&P, 2011)

Another strategic move over the past five years has been the drive to win business selling goods not using the eBay platform. PayPal, Bill Me Later, Shopping.com and StubHub are examples of this trend. The company has also extended its product reach to include out of season, and antique/vintage items. (S&P, 2011)

The company continues to roll out its online classifieds services. The eBay Classified Group has expanded with seven brands leading the way: BilBasan, dba.dk, eBay Classifieds, Gumtree, Kijiji (Swahili for Village), Marktplaats.nl and mobil.de, serving more than 1,000 cities worldwide. eBay also owns a 28% minority share in Craig's List. (S&P, 2011)

Industry Outlook

The analysts at Standard & Poor's are generally positive on the outlook for the Internet Software and Services sector. The basic tenets of their position are that the global economy is stabilizing and will be conducive to greater corporate spending on advertising, a greater percentage of the total spend will be directed toward online advertising, and pricing for the online offerings is showing signs of improving. Online advertising in the United States grew by 15% in 2010 and S&P estimates an increase of 10% in 2011. S&P estimates that the United States represents about one-third of the total global online advertising market. Online retail merchandise sales increased by 11% in 2010 and S&P's outlook is for…

Sources used in this document:
References

Argus, 2011, Analysts Notes, retrieved May 3, 2011 from www.argusresearch.com

Credit Suisse, 2011, Equity Research, retrieved May 3, 2011 from https://www.credit-suisse.com eBay, 2011, website, retrieved May 3, 2011 from http://www.ebayinc.com

Hoovers, 2011, Profiles, retrieved May 3, 2011 from http://hoovers.com

Schwab, 2011, Research, https://investing.schwab.com
S&P, 2011, Stock Reports, http://www.standardandpoors.com
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Maxx Company -- Strategic Marketing Plan Tk
Words: 4400 Length: 15 Document Type: Essay

Maxx Company -- Strategic Marketing Plan TK Maxx Strategic Marketing Plan TK Maxx is expanding beyond the brick and mortar footprint that helped it rise to the top of retail operations in the United Kingdom. As with its competitors, TK Maxx has entered the mobile digital market and is implementing multiple distribution channels (McVey, 1960). The company has a clear target market that transcends the various channels over which its goods are

Why Did the Dot Com Industry Crashed After the Boom
Words: 11033 Length: 40 Document Type: Term Paper

Com industry crash after the boom This is a paper examining some of the factors that caused the dot-com crash Many believe the root cause of the dot-com crash was over valuation of stock prices relative to the actual underlying value of the companies themselves. Stocks of Internet companies traded at Price-Earning ratios of higher then 30, buoyed by a speculative bubble. When reality set in for investors many realized that

Promising Phenomenon That Lends Itself
Words: 26560 Length: 96 Document Type: Dissertation

66). Furthermore, social software will only increase in importance in helping organizations maintain and manage their domains of knowledge and information. When networks are enabled and flourish, their value to all users and to the organization increases as well. That increase in value is typically nonlinear, where some additions yield more than proportionate values to the organization (McCluskey and Korobow, 2009). Some of the key characteristics of social software applications

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now