EBAY IN ASIA

eBay in Asia



eBay in Asia

Background of the Company

eBay is a particularly famous company in USA which was established in September 1995 by the Iranian computer programmer Pierre Omidyar. Initially, he made his own personal website and gave it the name of Auction Web. All these developments took place when the Internet and the concept of World Wide Web were relatively new. It was then after 1996 the number of Internet users increased rapidly from 50,000 to 1 million people. At that time, people started taking an interest in the Internet and participated in Internet shopping. Although during those days there was no reliable payment system which would keep both the buyer and seller secure. The concept of Encrypted websites was not there at that time, but it got developed after few years. (Echikson, 2000)

eBay and Its Element of Success

This is crucial to discuss in order to understand eBay and its position in Asia, which is the main theme of this assignment. The first thing which was sold on the eBay website, was a broken laser pointer. This particular transaction shocked Pierre considerably because he has already communicated with the buyer that this device was broken, but it still got purchased by him. The buyer told him the reason for purchasing this item as he liked collecting broken laser printers. He tried to prove Pierre that there is a market for every item and the customer must have an access towards this market. Because of this philosophy, it was remarkably clear that whenever people would like to purchase any item such as tshirts, jeans and shoes, they will surely find it on eBay. The initial problems which were faced by the eBay were the lack of trust in conducting money transactions on the Internet. They knew that the issues of security and trust were vital for their growth. Therefore, in May 1999 eBay purchased an online payment system known as Billpoint, which is to be used exclusively on their website. However, after few years a new company emerged known as PayPal that developed online payment systems and were even quite successful in their transactions. In 2002, eBay even purchased PayPal because of their efficient operations and it became the first choice for almost all Internet shoppers due to enhanced security features and guarantees. (Marketing in a Hyper-Social World, 2010)

Marketing a business on eBay has become quite natural for people and businesses. Like for instance, if any individual wants to advertise a computer item on eBay and then want to sell it, he would need to follow few techniques to achieve this purpose. Firstly, he would need to advertise the product by describing the specifications of the computer item and will then need to go through the process of online auction. During an online auction, he would first set the base price of his computer item and then whoever will be interested will bid price for the item. In the end, the consumer that would bid the suitable price ...