eBay’s Globalization Strategy Essays -- Business Management Studies

eBay’s Globalization Strategy eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll in May 1996. Their headquarters were in San Jose, California in the midst of the dot-com era. The company idea initially began as â€Å"Auction Web, which Omidyar launched in September 1995. The idea was to develop an open market place that was available for all members of the community to discuss, compare, and trade computer items as well as collectibles. The idea took off, reaching thousands of registered users in just a few years. By January 1997, AuctionWeb could not handle the large load of page views – bandwidth. Omidyar solved this problem by writing the code for a new system: ebay (Echo Bay Technologies). In September 1997, AuctionWeb was shut down and the eBay platform was opened. The ebay company vision: â€Å"To create the world’s largest global trading community and to help people trade practically anything on earth.† eBay had 2.4 M visitors in 8/98, quadrupling in size to 8.4 M visitors in 4/01. Listings on their site began at 500 in 1998 and grew to just under 5 M in 2001. What started out as an auction site for computer and collectible items matured to include toys, pottery, automobiles, furniture, to movies, etc. Omidyar and Skoll achieved their, â€Å"trade anything† goal much sooner than expected. In 1998, eBay went public. Given the sufficient number of funds received from the IPO, eBay launched strategic initiatives aimed at six specific objectives. 1) Grow the eBay community and strengthen the brand (attract and maintain vitality) 2) Broaden the company’s trading platform by growing existing product categories, promoting new product categories, and offering services for specific regions 3) Fost... ...ever, the 2004 estimates are more closely aligned with 2003 Actuals. This suggests that population growth was not as high as expected. Therefore, our projections took that into consideration and usage expectations were decreased. [7] --------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Strategic Management Concepts and Cases, Thompson and Strickland, 12th Edition, P. C-263 [2] Strategic Marketing Problems, Kerin and Peterson, 10th Edition, P. 97 [3] Strategic Marketing Problems, Kerin and Peterson, 10th Edition, P. 89 [4] Strategic Marketing Problems, Kerin and Peterson, 10th Edition, P. 96 [5] Strategic Marketing Problems, Kerin and Peterson, 10th Edition, P. 103 [6] Strategic Marketing Problems, Kerin and Peterson, 10th Edition, P. 101 [7] Population Reference Bureau, http://www.prb.org/