FHW - Economics University

eBay - A Strategic Analysis

by

Martin Lüthge

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ... 4

2. Company View ... 4

2.1 Founding and Management ... 4
2.2 Company Expansion ... 4
2.3 Company Figures and Strategic Changes ... 5

3. Market View ... 6

3.1 Market Potential ... 6
3.2 PESTEL Analysis ... 7
3.3 Competitive Forces ... 8
3.4 Financial Positioning ... 10
3.5 SWOT Analysis ... 11

4. Conclusions ... 12

5. Appendix ... 13

Figures

Figure 1: Number of Employees at eBay worldwide ... 14
Figure 2: Company Expansion ... 15
Figure 3: Worldwide Numbers of Registered Users on eBay ... 16
Figure 4: Worldwide Numbers of Listings on eBay ... 17
Figure 5: Worldwide Total Value of Items Sold on eBay ... 18
Figure 6: Strategic Changes ... 19
Figure 7: Market Potential ... 20
Figure 8: PESTEL Analysis ... 21
Figure 9: Five Forces Analysis ... 22
Figure 10: Financial Positioning ... 23
Figure 11: SWOT Analysis ... 24

Bibliography ... 25

Schlagworte für die Studie: eBay, Auktionen, Internet, eCommerce, Onlinehandel

Erläuterungen zur Studie (German)

Mitte der 90er Jahre stieg die Bedeutung des Internets signifikant an. Aufgrund der prognostizierten Chancen und Aussichten des Internets dauerte es nichts lange, bis unzählige Internetfirmen mit den verschiedensten Geschäftsmodellen gegründet waren. Jedoch nur wenige dieser .com′s sind bisher in der Lage gewesen Gewinne zu erwirtschaften und international zu expandieren. eBay ist eines der wenigen Internetunternehmen, das bisher beide Ziele erreichen konnte.

Dieses Strategiepapier stellt die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung sowie die derzeitige Positionierung des Unternehmens anhand ausgewählter Kennziffern dar. Im Rahmen dieser Studie werden die strategischen Kennzahlen des Unternehmens analysiert und bewertet. In diesem Zusammenhang erfolgt ebenso eine Bewertung der Rahmenbedingungen des Unternehmens, des Marktes, des Wettbewerbes sowie der finanziellen Kennziffern (Umsatz/Gewinn) im Vergleich zu komparativen Wettbewerbern wie Amazon, Yahoo etc. Ebenso werden die Zukunftsaussichten des Unternehmens sowie der damit verbundenen Chancen und Risiken analysiert.

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Die Studie besteht aus:
1. einer umfangreichen niedergeschriebenen Studie mit weltweiten Referenzen sowie aus
2. einer qualitativ hochwertigen Präsentation

Introduction (English)

In the middle of the 90′s, the importance of the Internet increased significantly. Due to the prognosticated prospects and expectations of the Internet, it did not need a long time until innumerable companies with business models focused on the Internet were established.¹ Only few of these Internet business models have reached an international size or work profitable so far.²

However, one of the companies, which reached theses objectives, is eBay.³ Within this strategy paper, the development of the enterprise and the strategic figures are identified, analyzed and evaluated. Furthermore, an evaluation of the environment, the market, the competition as well as financial indices in comparison with Amazon, Yahoo etc. was conducted, in order to evaluate the development potentials as well as the future chances and risks of the company.

2. Company View

2.1 Founding and Management

eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar, who is still the chairman of the company, in San Jose in September 1995. The company’s business is an online person-to-person trading community, 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. From the start, it was meant to be a marketplace for the sale of goods and services for individuals.

In 1998, Pierre and his cofounder Jeff Skoll brought in Meg Whitman to sustain the success. eBay was going public on the New York Stock Exchange in 1998 and has continued its growing. At the end of 2002, there are about 4.000 people working for eBay.⁴

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The study consists of
1. a comprehensive word documents with a huge range of world wide references and
2. a high-quality and animated power point presentation

[...]

1 E-Commerce Times (2003) New Respect for the Internet Bubble-Blowers.
Posted on the Internet: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/20402.html

2 CNNmoney.com (2003) The next Internet bubble.
Posted on the Internet: http://money.cnn.com/2003/06/10/technology/bubble
ZDNet.de (2002) Der Aufstieg und Fall der New Economy.
Posted on the Internet: http://news.zdnet.de/story/0,,t101-s2109226,00.html
Manager Magazin (2001) Endlich Gewinne!
Posted on the Internet: http://www.manager-magazin.de/magazin/artikel/0,2828,249618,00.html

3 Wirtschaftwoche (2003) Vom Flohmarkt zur Profi-Plattform: Das System eBay
Posted on the Internet:
http://www.wiwo.de/pswiwo/fn/ww2/sfn/buildww/cn/cn_artikel/id/156/id/13071/SH/0/dep
ot/0/bt/2/index.html

4 eBay.com (2003) Company Overview.
Posted on the Internet: http://pages.ebay.com/community/aboutebay/overview/management.html