1. Do the SWOT analysis of eBay as the world’s largest online auction website.

SWOT Analysis: SWOT analysis refers to the technique used to identify strengths, weakness,
opportunities, and threats of an organization. Where strengths and weakness are internal to any business,
threats and opportunities exists in external environment.

Strength: the inherent capability of the organization which it can use to gain strategic advantage.

Weakness: the inherent limitation or constraint of the organization which gives strategic disadvantage.

Opportunities: Favorable condition in the environment which will strengthen its position.

Threats: Unfavorable condition in the organization’s environment which creates risks and disadvantage.

SWOT Analysis of Ebay:

 Strength: 1. Growth of user.

2. Diversification
3. Marketing

 Weakness: 1. Controlling
2. Fake or illegal
3. Auctions
4. Higher Cost

 Threats: 1. Local competitors

2. Global competitors

 Opportunities: 1. Google helps for marketing.

Now let me explain in details:

Strength of ebay:

1. Growth of users and consumers: As the user are increased to 181 million by 2005.
2. Diversification: The wide range of products are a great strength as buyers and sellers are interested
in variety of product.
3. Marketing: Ebay is launched in many countries which has increased its marketing leading to get
more consumers.

Weakness of ebay:

1. Fake and illegal auctions; There are large number of fraudulent seller on ebay which harms the
brand’s value.
2. Difficulties in purchase: Compared to its other competitors ebay makes purchasing items a little
more difficult and time consuming.
3. Higher Cost: Comparing to its competitors eBay’s sellers charge up to twice the price of the product
for shipping which will discourage the consumers to buy form ebay.
 Opportunities of eBay:

1. Marketing: Although eBay offers variety of products in various countries it still needs to increase its
marketing in order of expand.
2. Effective Marketing: Evan though google is a competitor it still gives a high marketing service to
eBay thus the marketing in google must be done effectively.
3. Niche Marketing Strategy: eBay should focus on customer retention now more as there are lot of
competitors out of giving better services.

Threats of eBay:

1. The biggest Threat: The bigger threats is now the rise of competitor, mostly amazon as it provides
cheap and easily accessible product.
2. Scams: As the line said even though one may find a better deal but one has to be careful with what
one buys, as there are lots of scammers and fraudulent sellers.

2. Point out the resources of eBay (on the basis of given case’s information) in three broad
head of Tangible, Intangible and Organizational Capabilities.

 Resources of eBay on the basis of Tangible Capabilities:

1. eBay facilities located in 25 different countries.
2. eBay has incorporated a large number of technologies in order to make everything run
efficiently.
3. User increased to 181 million on 2005.

 Resources of eBay on the basis of Intangible Capabilities:

1. Brand Reputation
2. A strong executive team.
3. The payment method (new managed payment experience) introduction of Google Pay etc.
4. Customer relationship management.

 Resources of eBay on the basis of Organizational Capabilities:

1. A strong executive team has been built in order to provide management among a variety of
business.
2. Introduction of various new methods for ease of customers.
3. Use of eBay auction listing, fixed price listing as well as the addition of their other online
platform such as rent.com, Skype and shopping.com.
4. The payments segment is made up of Google Pay and communications consists of the acquired
Skype.
3. Can you draw a diagram of primary activities of value chain analysis of eBay?

Value chain analysis has been widely used as a means of describing the activities within and around an
organization and relating them to as assessment of the competitive strength of an organization. Value
Chain Analysis looks at a company’s primary and support activities to identify how it creates value for its
customers. Similarly, it looks at how a company can obtain a competitive advantage in the market. Primary
and support activities have further divisions of the company’s operations. For a complete value chain,
company’s need to strengthen all those areas.

The primary activities of value chain analysis of eBay are:

 EBay’s Inbound Logistics:

Inbound logistics include all activities involved in obtaining raw material or inputs. It also includes how
the company stores its raw materials. For eBay, inbound logistics include the running of its online
platform. Therefore, the company has to purchase servers, other hardware products, and a wide range
of technological items to keep its platform online.

 EBay’s Operations: eBay’s business operations include a few processes that users must go
through. These include:

 Sellers register on the eBay website.

 Sellers list their products or services on the platform.
 Buyers bid for those products.
 The buyer with the highest bid or successful bid gets the item.
 Buyer pays eBay through the Google Pay.
 Bank notifies eBay about the purchase.
 eBay notifies the seller about the payment.
 The seller delivers goods to the buyer.
 The buyer notifies eBay of the receipt of goods.
 EBay’s Outbound Logistics:

eBay, in its operation, does not have its own shipping and logistics system. Therefore, it uses
external logistics services to ship items from sellers to buyers. eBay saves money by not having
the whole products in a warehouse. Merchandise sold on eBay is distributed by other sellers.
eBay serves as a middle man to a around the world who want to get their product out to the
public around the world

 EBay’s Marketing And Sales

Marketing and sales refer to activities involved in promoting a company’s products . By 2005
registered users increased to 181 million and acquired Rent.com, Skype and Shopping.com The
latest information in 2008 available states that eBay’s gross merchandise volume is 60 billion
annually.

 EBay’s Service

Service includes all services provided by companies before or after product sales. eBay has a
dedicated support channel for both buyers and sellers. eBay has improved their website by
adding the option of buy now, so people do not have to bid for everything. They also advertise for
the sellers during the holidays with holiday deals for consumer.