Comparison and Financial Assessment of eBay, the Clorox Company, and Darden Restaurants

EBay has paved the wave in this industry and being in a billion dollar industry making things happen to benefit consumers in many ways.[5]

Ebay is primarily service providers who connect the sellers and buyers by providing platform to sell and buy any goods.

Alipay’s core service is an escrow service which solves the concerns related to settlement risk between buyer and seller. In this system, after a buyer commits himself/herself to an online transaction, his/her payment is held in an Alipay account until he receives the product ordered. After the product is received the buyer notifies Alipay and the payment is then forwarded on to the seller. As of December 2006, Alipay had 33 million registered users. (Source: “Alipay - 33 Million Registered Users,” www.imnewswatch.com, February 5, 2007) PayPal was a leading online payment company purchased by eBay in mid-2002. In June 2007, PayPal had 143 million user accounts across the world. Through PayPal, individuals and businesses could send or receive money over the Internet. PayPal supported payments in US Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Australian Dollars, Euros, Pounds Sterling, and Japanese Yen. Buyers could also pay for their online purchases on various e-commerce websites and auction sites like eBay using the balance in their PayPal account. Though this mode of transaction was quick, there were also a number of complaints from disgruntled PayPal users. Most of the complaints were related to the dispute resolution procedures of PayPal. In eBay China, transaction fees used to be charged as a percentage of the value of completed sales. This ranged from RMB 10 for a sale worth RMB 500 to RMB 115 for one worth RMB 20,000 (Source: “EBay China

The company’s debt ratios are 54.5% in 1988, 58.69% in 1989, 62.7% in 1990, and 67.37% in 1991. What this means is that the company is increasing its financial risk by taking on more leverage. The company has been taking an extensive amount of purchasing over the past couple of years, which could be the reason as to why net income has not grown much beyond several thousands of dollars. One could argue that the company is trying to expand its inventory to help accumulate future sales. But another problem is that the company’s

E-Bay was founded in 1995, it was as radical and cutting-edge as many of the other "dot com" startups launched in that era. Today, however, eBay is one of the world’s most venerable online companies, not to mention one of the most endlessly emulated and discussed companies in the world (Hsiao, 2016). In an Article written by Aron Hsiao, Hsiao states, “eBay is place to buy meaning, you can get nearly anything you need or want at prices better than you can find in traditional brick-and-mortar or even online stores. Though there are lots of rotten deals on eBay, too, the careful consumer can always come out ahead. He then says, “eBay is a place to sell meaning, whether you are a Bix-box retailer or just an average Joe (or Jane) cleaning out your garage, nearly anything you list on eBay will sell if you are flexible enough about the price. E-Bays global reach can even move unusual items that are not in demand in your

Since the late nineties, there has been a growing sector of online companies that sell merchandise or other products, known as e-tailers. This growing market, as a result, has driven demand for another type of company that is able to safely and securely process payments and business transactions between buyers and sellers. The growth in the online industry has spurred all types of opportunities for payment service providers like PayPal. There are a variety of competitors that have entered the market, such as Amazon payments and Stripe. However, PayPal has used it’s first-mover advantage and this has allowed them to make their service synonymous with online purchases and payment processing. This brand name and reputation alone has given them the ability to position themselves in the market in order to sustain their business long term. This paper will focus on how the idea of PayPal was developed, grew into a massive e-business with over 179 million active users, and changed the way people pay online.

EBay is a website by the people, of the people, for the people. That is why it has the culture of trust, openness, respect, empowerment, and equality. EBay is not only used as a market place, it is also a place to meet with others who share the same interests, have discussions on topics they care about, and also share information with each other using the various communication channels found on the site like bulletin boards, chat rooms, and email services. This culture is what led to the popularity of eBay.

Ebay has a big advantage over Taobao.com , they have years of experience ahead, brand awareness because they are pioneers .EBay’s success lies in being the first ones on providing a major web auction, which could be identified as a lock-in effect, even though there are other auction sites nowadays eBay is still leading. Ebay is always looking at its competitors to make sure they provide the consumer what the competitor is offering, they are innovating and this is why they are still leading.

EBay Inc. (EBAY) is a leading global commerce platform that enables individuals and businesses to buy and sell products online. Over the past 20 years, it has become one of the largest online marketplaces, with over 159 million active users around the world and more than 800 million items for sale. EBay’s vision is “one that is enabled by people, powered by technology, and open to everyone” (What We Do). EBay runs a more decentralized commerce system than Amazon and other e-commerce companies. Their purpose is to act as a facilitator of peer-to-peer commerce rather than maintain their own inventory and sell directly to consumers. This gives more power to eBay marketplace sellers and allows for both auctions and fixed price sales. (EBay vs Amazon) With new startups on the rise such as Etsy, SellSimple, and Threadflip, along with e-commerce veterans such as Amazon or Alibaba, eBay has to continuously work to improve its services to maintain its sellers and continue to attract a larger consumer base. (Thomas) Using information technology and improved information systems has helped eBay achieve their goals and differentiate the platform in an increasingly competitive market.

eBay is the leading global brand for online auctions. The company is a giant marketplace used by more than 100 million people to buy and sell all manner of things to each other. The brand has grown tremendously over the decade or so since its conception.

Omidyar added several clever ideas to eBay’s web service to stimulate interest. First, he adopted an auction-like trading format to not only create a sense of urgency, but also allow buyers to follow the bidding status for each item. Secondly, he provided sellers with opportunities to “spice up” their auction pages. Sellers were encouraged to upload pictures of their items or add music. Thirdly, Omidyar created the eBay Community, composed of registered traders sharing in common interests and passions for collectible and tradable goods. eBay listed all participants' email addresses and provided chat rooms, such as the eBay cafe, where eBay community members could talk about sale items, hobbies, or other non-trading related topics. Finally, eBay allowed users to discuss the relative quality of items, sellers, and buyers in the eBay community by providing a “Feedback Forum” for community members to interact. eBay's first auction occurred on Labor Day 1995. Three years later, with over one thousand categories listed and 70,000 new sale items added daily, eBay had become the largest and most popular person-to-person trading community on the Internet. The goods traded on eBay’s web site included: antiques, sports memorabilia, books, toys, cars, computers, dolls, coins, jewelry, electronics, photography, and music. The company neither received goods nor payments for goods, but simply provided an arena for buyers and sellers to interact. To generate

As ubiquitous as eBay is to Americans, it is only a few decades old. eBay was created back in 1995 in San Jose in the living room of founder Pierre Omidyar with his partner Jeff Skoll and it was envisioned to be a marketplace for the sale of goods and services for individuals (Bjornsson, 2001). Meg Whitman was eventually brought onboard to sustain the success and to help hone a better vision for the company: "that eBay is a company that's in the business of connecting people, not selling them things" (Bjornsson, 2001). Part of the widespread success of eBay was founded in the principle that it was not just about auctioning off collectibles, but in upscale markets as well and in creating solid partnerships with brands like GM, Disney and Sun (bradeis.edu). In spite of those tremendous accomplishments, the real success of eBay is in its trading community on the Internet and making it a marketplace that is safe and regulated. "Buyers and sellers are brought together in a manner where sellers are permitted to list items for sale, buyers to bid on items of interest and all eBay users to browse through listed items in a fully automated way. The items are arranged by topics, where each type of auction has its own category" (Bjornsson, 2001). However, despite the massive success that eBay has had in America and in other regions of North America, it has struggled in other marketplaces around the world; something which was indeed a surprise

In 1995 computer programmer Pierre Omidyar established eBay Inc. (eBay) from his living room in San Jose, California. He created a simple prototype of an auction site on his personal website and called it Auction Web, then let people list items for auction. He was amazed at the number of buyers and sellers that his site attracted and he soon had to set up a separate site devoted to auctions. By charging sellers for posting their auction items, and taking a small percentage of each sale, the company made money simply by supplying a place for buyers and sellers to meet. Business grew through word of mouth. A Feedback Forum was added to allow buyers and sellers a way to rate each other for honesty and reliability. Branching out from collectibles, the site quickly expanded into a vast range of items, including electronics, home furnishings and appliances, and cars and other vehicles.

On September 3, 1995, Pierre Omidyar founded eBay in San Jose, California. Pierre and his wife, Pamela Wesley, had a vision that included creating a marketplace online where people could share the same interests. This vision also included a format that could create a fair and open meeting ground where prices were determined purely by the market. The site was based on five main values: people are basically good; everyone has something to contribute; an honest, open environment can bring out the best in people; everyone deserves recognition and respect as a unique individual; and you should treat others the way you wanted to be treated.

During the starting years of eBay, Pierre Omidyar adopted a very simple approach into selling, which is, “there is always a market for any product that you are selling, the only challenge is in finding that right target market.”