Leadership Analysis: Meg Whitman as Ebay CEO

Ebay, as a company itself, fits more in the category of an oligopoly, which is actually pretty common in any market. Other alternative websites include Yahoo!, Amazon, and Quibids, but there are only a small number of them, certainly not hundreds as in monopolistic competition. Also, eBay is interdependent on the few other auction website companies, competing with the fees they charge, as well as quality of customer support, and buyer/seller reliability. Another characteristic of eBay that coincides with it being considered an oligopoly is the fact that it has numerous entry barriers. It’s such a large company with many restrictions, and it would be hard for an up and coming substitute auction website to break into the market and compete with eBay or the other top companies in the industry. (6)

This is a longer answer, use more space if you require. Make sure you list each of these cultural characteristics and identify where the buyer and seller belongs with a example. 9 Points

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]

Dembosky, A. (2012). Ebay moves beyond its dotcom roots. Available:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/df3723ca-1773-11e2-8cbe-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2EbzDqb5Y. Last accessed 10th Dec 2012

Connected strengths decide eBays force of rivalry and henceforth the productivity and engaging quality of

Many businesses have shown that after implementing an e-commerce system into their companies, sales have increased immensely. Sneaker Joe’s is a small family run business that is looking to expand their business after the sneakers they sell have shown to be very popular locally, after a picture of them was spotted on a social networking site. I have been looking at some of the most popular websites that consumers use to purchase their goods and what kind of commerce system they have in place, but first, I have written an explanation of the different types of ecommerce used today.

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

When looking at eBay’s target market, the segmentation of users appears to be majority males, ranging from 25-34 years old. Over half of the users don’t have kids and also lack college experience. The majority of the people are Caucasian and have a household income of $100,000. After looking at this information there are some good opportunities that eBay could capitalize on.

E-commerce (electronic commerce or EC) is the buying and selling of goods and services, or the transmitting of funds or data, over an electronic network, primarily the Internet. These business transactions occur either business-to-business, business-to-consumer, consumer-to-consumer or consumer-to-business. The terms e-commerceand e-business are often used interchangeably. The term e-tail is also sometimes used in reference to transactional processes around online retail, (SearchCIO, 2015). In other words e-commerce is the buying and selling of goods and services online.

Electronic commerce has been there for a long time now, and it is a practice that is practiced by peoples from Germany, France, and the US on a daily basis. Since its inception around 40 years ago, e-commerce has continued to grow as innovations, technologies and a lot of business reverting to the use of the e-commerce. The aspect of buying and selling of goods in the early 1960s was sluggish with the traditional way of mailing of documents being replaced with the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), which would later pave a way to the electronic commerce. After the e-commerce, however, the practice was not more reliable as it still had many challenges (Tsolis, 2009). For instance, it was not easy for buyers to see products from the comfort of their homes and more so, the methods of accessing the information were limited.

There are likewise low leave boundaries in this industry. EBay possesses 35.14 % of the business sector starting 21st of February, 2012, which leaves space for them to grow. EBay requirements to stay aware of purchasers needs and needs alongside watching out for its rivals keeping in mind the end goal to be fruitful.

EBay functioned as being a nonhierarchical, democratic organization that encouraged ideas and feedback from all employees. The culture at eBay characterized as being open and low risk, where employees were encouraged to express their opinions despite their different points of view. Mistakes were acceptable, but employees were encouraged to truly learn from them. According to Whitman, unlike other companies where different views and opinions from the senior management were barely heard , at EBay they do not have “punishes” attitude, meaning that there is no penalty for being on the wrong side of an issue or changing your mind in the face of better information. If an employee`s point of view contradict with his/her colleague when you end up convinced to be wrong, the culture is to appreciate your opinion and at the same time to come with the approach of: “ok⎯that’s smart. You’re right. Let’s move on.” In addition, As role models, senior managers had to act with a high degree of professionalism and respect. EBay does not encourage people who scream loud or pound the tables. At EBay, it’s pretty even-keeled culture.

This created an environment where consumers were receiving what they desired and also at higher volume creating profits. “ Donahoe- “We have to create a marketplace where we’re helping our sellers give our buyers what they want”” (Armstrong, 2013). Giving the customers what they desire created profit and growth for eBay.

The company eBay Inc. is an American multinational Internet consumer-to-consumer corporation. Founded in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar in San Jose, California, it is now a multi-billion dollar business with operations localized in over thirty countries including China and India. It’s main enterprise is eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website that allows people and businesses to buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services internationally. Millions of collectibles, décor, appliances, computers, furnishings, equipment, domain names, vehicles, services, intangibles and other miscellaneous items are listed, bought, or sold daily on eBay. Anything can be auctioned on the site as long as it is not illegal and does not violate the eBay’s Prohibited and Restricted Items policy.

What aspects of eBay’s strategic capability are easily copied by new entrants and if so would you copy them and how would you copy them?