International Business Model I International Business Model: eBay

In order to understand the international market and what eBay has to offer in that market, it is important to discuss the company in light of the 4 Ps (product, place, promotion, and price). That can provide a better understanding of why eBay failed in some Asian markets and why it struggled for some time before seeing success in others. While eBay is a highly popular site in the U.S., the UK, and a few other countries, that did not mean it could automatically move right into Asian countries or others and do just as well. There were issues it had to address, and some unexpected difficulties that appeared even though the company did not feel it would have to worry about them and/or thought it had covered all the bases with the particular country into which it was moving.

EBay's product was not really an issue for the company when it came to being successful or not being successful, because eBay itself does not actually have a product (Cohen, 2002; Walton, 2006). Since it is an online auction site where people go to sell all kinds of different things from clothing to jewelry to cars, a person can find almost anything for any price on eBay. Product matters in the global business marketplace, but with an auction site the only real product is the availability of the site itself. Of course, sellers on the site can make their own determination of whether they want to sell something and whether they are willing to ship it to a particular country (Jackson, 2004). If the majority of people do not want to ship to Asian countries or...

EBay encountered some of that problem, and was not completely prepared for the number of people who were uninterested in using the site or who were already using a competitor.
Place was another issue for eBay that was really a non-issue. From a global business standpoint, place is generally insignificant and/or unimportant for an online company (Nissanoff, 2006). EBay is strictly an online auction site, so anyone using the site to buy or sell something generally expects to need to ship something to the seller. In other words, individuals who want to buy something should expect to pay shipping, and individuals who want to sell something should not expect to have to allow the buyer to come to their home. However, some of the items on eBay are large and heavy, and those items would have to be picked up by the buyer or delivered by the seller. It is also important to be aware of the shipping costs for buyers in other countries, because that can play a role in how successful eBay is in a particular country (Cohen, 2002; Jackson, 2004). If most of the sellers are located outside of the buyer's home country, that buyer may not want to use the sight because of the extra cost for having the item shipped.

Promotion is a big issue for eBay (Nissanoff, 2006). Just because the company is nearly a household name in the U.S. does not mean it is that popular in other countries. Because that is the case, it is very important that…