Ebay Case Study

SUBJECT: Ebay Global Strategy Analysis

I. The eBay's Current Objectives and Current Strategy

EBay is the leader in the online auction industry. The company has changed greatly from its humble beginnings in San Francisco during the 1990s where they offered a place for individual sellers to auction their goods. Now this virtual powerhouse is the online auction industry leader, offering virtually anything individual sellers, entrepreneurs or corporations may be looking for. There strategy has changed from its beginnings because Pierre Omidyar, its founder, had no idea of the possibilities for his company. EBay is now focusing its corporate and business level strategies on becoming a more diversified business that is appealing to international customers. They want to diversify their value chain as well as their customers and expand their global reach. Today eBay has expanded its product line to include eBay motors, eBay real estate and the LiveAuctions specialty site, adding to their growth and diversification. EBay is expanding itself into the global market in order to achieve additional growth. It is crucial they expand into the international markets because it’s large US customer base threatens to halt their rapid growth as they will start to run out of customers. Its objective is to “provide a global trading platform where practically anyone anywhere can trade practically anything anytime.” (IB) Their strategy to achieve this has been to acquire leading auction Web sites in other countries.

II. The eBay's Current Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

One of eBay’s strengths is its well recognized name (core competence). EBay uses multiple advertising techniques to get publicity on many media avenues. Compared to their competitors, eBay is the most recognized online auction site world-wide. This will assist in their strategy for globalization as most customers and potential customers associate online trading with the eBay name.

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