The Success Story Of eBay – An E-Commerce Giant with Giant Leap
Pierre Omidyar is responsible for the website eBay somewhere around 1995. It started in his living room. Since initial days only it meant to be a marketplace where buyers and sellers can do transactions conveniently. After 3 years, Meg Whitman joined Pierre and led the website to a new success level. Later on experienced people from some of the biggest companies also joined to make up a strong team for eBay. Some of the important names are Disney, Pepsico, and so on. Soon, the company started collaborating with a number of bigger brands such as GM, Sun, and so on. The average sale of the items also started increasing per day.
The Dynamic Business Model: eBay
(Source: Brandeis University)
eBay had a model of business that brought both sellers and buyers together at one single platform. Buyers can list their items on the website for sale and the buyers can cross-check these items and bid on them to buy. These items are arranged category-wise so that the buyers can easily search for their required items and can order them. The trading for the sellers is also made quite convenient and hence registering can be done in just a few minutes and they can instantly start listing the items online for the buyers.
It is easy for the buyers to search for the items and order the items. They just have to pay for the item and there are no such other charges for the bidding process. But on the other hand, the sellers do have to pay two different kinds of charges.
- An insertion fee is charged that is nonrefundable. This fee is charged when a seller lists an item on the site. The charges depend on the opening bid of the seller’s item.
- Another fee is charged for additional options that are provided for the item listed such as highlighted listing and so on that can promote the item on the site.
- The last charge is the Final Value that is charged on the final price of the item at the end of the auction.
The buyer and the seller are notified with the help of an email for all the steps of selling or buying the items. The transaction between the seller and the buyer takes place independently apart from the above-mentioned charges charged by the site.
The History Of eBay
The Success Story of Alibaba – China’s E-Commerce Giant
Found on 4th April of the year 1999, Alibaba is a Chinese multinational organization with its hold on various areas such as retail, e-commerce, technology, AI, and internet. If seen as per the revenue, the company ranks number five among the various largest internet companies. The founders who made this organization a successful one are Jack Ma, Lou Wensheng, Tony Yiu, Jane Jiang, Ma Chengwei, Joseph C. Tsai, Simon Xie, Cathy Zhang, James Sheng, Shi Yufeng, Peng Lei, Trudy Dai, Eddie Wu, Zhou Yuehong, Jianhang Jin, Han Min, Jin Yuanying, and Toto Sun. The Success Story of Alibaba marked a change in the online e-commerce industry.
Where it All Started: Alibaba
When the company started, the operations started from the apartment of Jack Ma located in Hangzhou. The first website launched by the company is Alibaba.com. The website is in the language English and has turned out to be a global marketplace by now. Afterward, in the same year, a domestic marketplace started in China, currently known by the name 1688.com.
Success Story of Alibaba: Detailed RoadMap
Source: Alibaba History
- 2000 – The group got an investment of about US$20 million from SoftBank’s investor group. The same year in the month of September, Alibaba organized a Summit with leaders of thoughts and internet business together. Soon by December 2001, the company crossed 1 million users.