E-Commerce

EBay : The World 's Online Marketplace

One of the most amazing success stories in the 21st century was the creation and establishment of eBay . It started as a business proposition that at first glance no financier or investor would give a second chance . That is due to the fact that it was never done before and humans are particularly afraid of the unknown - it is always better to be on the safe side , to be predictable . But in recent years eBay has proven its critics and detractors wrong . Due to its unique way

of doing business it has dominated the online auction market

Jacko and Sears in their book The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook ' affirm the successful business model of eBay and they wrote

By providing a safe , easily understood marketplace that matched sellers with buyers for all sorts of items , and charging each side of the transaction a fee along the way [ .] eBay 's business model demanded that their audience needed to be many thousands of consumers , and there should be a balance between buyers and sellers

The success of eBay can be explained in so many different ways . In general it can be explained through its business model that demonstrates a new way of doing things

Vulkan in his book The Economics of E-Commerce ' said that the phenomenal success of online auctions - which is the case of eBay- is due to the fact that , .internet technology lowers the cost of setting up and running an auction and of participating in auctions Consumers can bid in C2C and B2C auctions without leaving their homes And since most of these auctions run for more than a day , bidders can participate at their leisure

Karp shared this insight his take on what makes eBay work and he said

eBay is a community of buyers and sellers , no just a mere website or piece of software . It 's a complex social system which you are an active member . Success on eBay depends not only on your ability to master the technical tasks of bidding and selling , but on your ability to communicate with other eBay members and your willingness to contribute to the community in a positive way

Karp was pointing to the way eBay was able to successfully create a community that was an offshoot on its unique business model . This can be easily seen by using a comparison . If compared to Amazon .com for example , Amazon .com will have a hard time building a community in the same way that eBay did . For starters Amazon is selling a limited variety of goods i .e . books , whereas eBay is selling almost anything . Since eBay is offering a lot more then it follows that those with an entrepreneurial bent can create a community that will network with others and use that connection to move products that they really need With Amazon 's book selling business it is doubtful that a huge percentage of the people in the planet would care...