eBay e-Commerce Report

Brief History

            eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll in 1995 as an e-market platform for the sales of goods and services for individuals via the world-wide web. However, in 1998, Meg Whitman was brought in to maintain the tempo of success at eBay (eBay, 2001). Whitman brought her wealth of knowledge in branding coupled with her education at Harvard to the team. eBay is an online store with a business model that is based on person-to-person trading via the internet. Sellers can list items for sale either as an auction or at a fixed price; buyers either bids or purchase the item by winning the bidding or by paying the asking price for the item, all these functions are automated without input by eBay employees.

Company Structure

            Due to the size of the company, eBay organizational structure is based on a hierarchical model. The company employs about 12,000 workers worldwide. The Board of director has 11 members with Thomas J. Tierney as he Chairman of the Board, while Devin Wenig leads the executive team as President and CEO. Other relevant positions at eBay comprises of the President Stab Hub, SVP Chief Technology Officer, SVP General Counsel, VP, Global Operations, SVP for North America, Asia Pacific, and Europe, SVP Chief Product Officer, SVP, Chief Financial Officer, SVP Chief Communication Officer, and the SVP Chief People Officer (Dudovskiy, J., 2016). The core business at eBay includes a marketplace platform where goods and services are being sold (www.eBay.com) and a payment platform for payment for goods and services bought (www.Paypal.com). It is noteworthy to state that the two-core business has been separated. Before separation, eBay Inc. included of eBay.com, eBay Enterprise, and PayPal, while the post separation has three separate entities and subdivisions.

                                            

                                                            research-methodology.net

eBay Products and Services

            eBay's core value is one that is "enabled by people, powered by technology, and open to everyone" (eBay, n. d). eBay focuses on partnering with sellers by providing the platform where an individual can convert old items into cash by selling it on eBay. However, eBay does have its core products and services to make the buying and selling experience at eBay, an easy experience, some of these services are highlighted below:

eBay Stores Markdown Manager: The Markdown manager is a tool created to help Store owners boost sales. The Markdown manager is used by store owners to slash prices of listed items which act as an incentive for buys to purchase the seller's item at a discount. The sales could be "scheduled and automated for a specific listing and categories or applied across all Store Inventory or Fixed-Priced listings" (Kooser, A., 2017).

Free Shipping: eBay allows its store owners and individual sellers to offer free shipping on their item, as free shipping can incentivize a prospective customer to purchase or bid on such item due to zero cost of shipping such item. Store owners can also “take advantage of this extra exposure by inserting "0" for their first flat-rate shipping costs when they post their listings, or by checking the "Free Shipping" box when listing through the "Sell Your Item" form" (Kooser, A., 2017). However, the location of the buyer is considered; as the option for free shipping is constrained to local listing (within the United States).

eBay Search Box: eBay offers a quick and easy way to find items or item on its website, this is done by typing a keyword into the search box, and a list of best matches are displayed. The buyer can then filter the search to suit his/her preference. For instance, the buyer could filter out a specific price range, size, sex, shipping and so on.

Email marketing: Email marketing is a way eBay keep customers informed of new items, deals and much more on eBay. It is an effective way to retain existing clients and a tool to expand its customer base.

eBay Valet: eBay also offers customers the option of having eBay professionals sell their goods for a commission.  The seller sends the items to eBay valet with a prepaid shipping label that is incurred by eBay and eBay does the listing and selling of the item on behalf of the seller. eBay also offer other services like eBay MapIt, tutorials on how to use eBay for fundraising for sellers and non-profits, Skype buttons for voice and chat with customers, and eBay deal finders.

How eBay Increase Site Traffic

             There are different ways eBay increases site traffic; the company has long used Twitter as a medium to promote and announce brand-forward information. eBay uses Twitter Ad campaigns to promote items such as sporting goods, motor -related products, consumer electronics to attract millennial shoppers to its website. The firm also partners with Brand Network, a digital company to develop viable content showcasing eBay's daily deals and other promotions. The content is then distributed on Twitter to different demographics using different rich media ad formats and targeting options (eBay, n. d). Another strategy employed by eBay to drive site traffic is the use of search engines and key words, also by creating great content and links, the use of Banner ads, and affiliate programs where other sites are paid to direct traffic to eBay, and finally by creating online communities for people with the same shopping interest.

How eBay Tackle Business Challenges

            The greatest risk facing any e-commerce is security. How to safeguard user information from unauthorized access (complying with the CIA-triad). This concern by e-commerce entities was pressed further by eBay in its statement "Cybercrime, particularly phishing and identity fraud, is the biggest threat to the continued development of the online economy. The success of the Internet ultimately rests upon consumers trusting the Internet and its safety. Cybercrime erodes this trust" (ebaymainstreet.com, n. d).   eBay uses defense-in-depth to ensure confidentiality and integrity of its website. User data are kept in a highly-secured security zone with restricted access. Furthermore, all access to eBay website is through Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Security (HTTPS). Personal Identifying Information (PII) is stored in a highly-secured security zone, ensured by Access Control. The information is also encrypted, and other industry standard security practices are also used to secure PII information and the servers that house the data (eBay, n. d).

            Credit cards and other Payment Card Industry (PCI) stored on eBay website are classified as restricted, and it is "persisted in a security hardened environments" (eBay, n. d). It also undergoes quarterly security audits and users are required to provide authentication before they can access the data. eBay also provides a platform for security researcher to disclose to its Security administrators any known vulnerabilities on its websites to enable patches on such vulnerabilities before hackers exploit it. The area of interest shared on the discussion forum includes Authentication/Authorization vulnerabilities, Cross-site Scripting (XSS), Cryptography, Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) in a privileged context, HTTP response splitting, Injection vulnerabilities, Information leakage, Man-in-the-Middle attack and any other significant vulnerability that could threaten the C.I.A-triad (eBay, n. d).  eBay also support Two Factor Authentication for its U. S customers. Users are prompted to enter their username and password while signing on to eBay website and when checking out, they are required to enter another password to authenticate the identity of the user before purchases are made. Moreover, security discussion forum is also a place to discuss user’s security concerns and security administrators are on hand to provide solution and guidance on how to solve such issues. Further, Fraud as being another concern at eBay, this fear leads eBay to employ a former federal prosecutor Rob Chesnut to handle fraud at eBay. In 2002, the company launched a software program nicknamed FADE (Fraud Automated Detection Engine), its objective is to detect fraudulent auction activities before a buyer bid on such item (Kirsner, S.,2003).

           

References

Dudovskiy, J., (2016). eBay Organizational Structure. Retrieved from: http://research-methodology.net/ebay-organizational-structure/

eBay, (2001). The History of eBay. Retrieved from: http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~magnus/ief248a/eBay/history.html

eBay, (n. d). Security and your eBay apps. Retrieved from: https://developer.ebay.com/api-docs/static/security.html

eBay, (n. d). Who we are. Retrieved from: https://www.ebayinc.com/our-company/who-we-are/

eBay, (n. d). How ‎@eBay uses Twitter Ads campaigns to drive cost-efficient site traffic. Retrieved from: https://marketing.twitter.com/na/en/success-stories/how-ebay-uses-twitter-ads-campaigns.html

ebaymainstreet.com, (n. d). Combating Cybercrime. https://www.ebaymainstreet.com/issues/combating-cybercrime

Kirsner, S., (2003). How eBay Fights Fraud, Retrieved from: https://www.fastcompany.com/46858/how-ebay-fights-fraud

Kooser, A., (2017). Latest eBay Products and Services. Retrieved from: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/176232