Case analysis exploring ebay's strategic options. Comparisons made against Amazon.com's 1500%+ growth over the past decade versus ebay's 50%+ growth, revenues, margins and ownership of key assets, supply chain, etc.
16. (Hidden Slide)
• Social Media Engagement?
• Innovation with core – facilitating value
exchange (eg paypal, fraud protection)
• Personal Payment Mechanism? (Square, etc)
• Targeted Advertising
• Big Data Analysis
• Partner with Physical Retail Chains /
Sporting Events (eg. “Game Day eBay
CheckOut store” Technology & Business Strategy,
Group 1
19. Paradox of Choice
System Lock-in
Enabling
through
technology
Total Customer Solutions
Technology & Business Strategy,
Group 1
20. Paradox of Choice
System Lock-in
ebay: Highly involved purchase behavior.
High margins. No supply chain experience
Purchases made are aberrations – data
extraction / trend analysis / graphing „intent‟
can be tricky / generate spurious correlations.
Enabling
through
technology
Total Customer Solutions
Technology & Business Strategy,
Group 1
Qualify the ebay user experience – how was it like buying/selling? Why do you use ebay? Why not other sites?
Qualify the amazon.com user experience. Why use amazon.com? What are the benefits? Traditional shipping stuff, or content (Kindle, Cloud Player, Instant Video, Cloud Drive, Appstore, Audible) or AWS/Mechanical Turk?
So should eBay stick to the existing model or follow amazon.com? I mean, there is a lot of opportunity in Amazon’s space – Amazon.com stock has been exploding, 1542% vs. 68% growth in the time period we’re looking at.
Write vote tally down
Defend votes, ask them to play devil’s advocate
Thought experiment on the Why-How-What model
Value-exchangePlatform“Confidence” mechanisms to balance ebay’s own ‘lack of control’ on the physical exchange of goods
Classic B2C.Amazon-led ‘demand planning’Marketplace-sellers in case of
Craigslist?Walmart?
/ “Predictability”
List on the board-Suppliers are vastly differentElement of LocalizationTransaction Efficiency & Convenience (Auction vs. fixed price)Product Attributes (Uniquenesss)Scale of speed, efficiency and business