Electronic Business and Commerce

Class 15


Topic:
Consumer Auctions
Class Plan:

In this class we study consumer auctions, with an emphasis on eBay.
Required Readings:
Going... Going... Gone! -- Consumer Auctions (Stanford Case)
Study Questions:
  1. How successful is eBay? Compare its performance to traditional retailers Target and Wal-Mart, and to Amazon.com. Can you make an "apples to apples" comparison between these players and eBay?
  2. What service does eBay provide? What does it actually do?
  3. Compare consumer-to-consumer transactions in a financial instrument (for example, stocks and bonds) to transactions in Beanie Babies. The latter appear to be more appropriate for eBay. Why?
  4. Look at Case Exhibit 11. What do you learn from the data on eBay, Yahoo Auctions, and Amazon Auctions?
  5. What are the different ways in which eBay is growing and can continue to grow? Which one would you focus on? Why?  How should eBay implement your plan?  Be as specific as you can.