Ebay's Core Competencies

Along the lines of the 4 P's (Price, Product, Promotion and Placement), Ebay possesses strengths in each of these areas.

Ebay educates sellers in negotiating and finding the best price for selling an item in the marketplace, benefiting not only the seller and buyer, but the company as well. Ebay's costs to sell an item online are unbeatable compared to that of other smaller online trading/auctioning sites. The price of posting items online is extremely attractive to anyone looking to sell an item online, whether it be an automobile or a screw driver. The website also allows the seller to determine the price of shipping for any given item allowing to maximize profit in this area as well.

Ebay offers a wide variety of items, from electronics to furniture to automobiles, and allows for any buyer to be able to easily purchase and process safe transactions through their affiliated payment company, Paypal. Although Ebay does not have a material product, their valuable intangible product is the low-cost advertisement "space" any person interested in selling an item can use for a reasonable fee to showcase their item(s) nationally or internationally. Since Ebay reaches millions of people on a daily basis, it is nearly the only online trading/auction website that most customers will look to nowadays.

Ebay is brilliant when it comes to promotion, when asking anyone that does frequent or infrequent online purchasing or web surfing, you can almost guarantee that they have visited Ebay's site at least once in their travels. Ebay promotes itself through other online sites, magazines and most importantly word of mouth, which is probably the companies most valuable promotional method. When researching online trading websites, most people without a question will immediately look to Ebay as their source for various reasons. The costs of posting an item are the lowest online has to offer, the safety of the transactions are attractive to many customers or potential sellers, and the large spectrum of differently priced items entices a variety of people all over the world. Ebay is the one auction site you could search for a "toe nail clipper" and find several listings for both new and used items. Ebay provides exceptional live online help to customers, as well the ability to contact toll free numbers with any questions or problems a customer may come across. Ebay also offers a variety of different promotional options for someone wishing to sell items on the site, they offer the ability to apply for either a credit card or business Paypal debit card, which not only provides money-back rewards for the customer for any purchases or transactions made, but also provides a safe, smooth, worry-free guarantee for the customers personal information.

Finally, placement is obvious to how Ebay caters to its' customers, Ebay is purely a web-based company, so the company can be accessed by anyone, anywhere in the world, making their services available to all their target consumers.


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