Ebay and Market Entry Challenges - Essay Example

eBay maintains the seller platform much like the United States that is set on fixed auction philosophy, which limits real-time discussion with sellers. GMarket is also more innovative in setting up excitement with buyers and sellers, acting as a middleman for various lottery schemes that provide more incentives (Ihlwan, 2006). eBay attempted to simply export in its market entry strategy, using the same business model that had found success in the United States. In a market where GMarket was an innovator creating incentives-based packages, eBay was having a tough time being the dominant auction and selling site of choice.

eBay’s fixed price selling concept was considered unfavorable by Chinese customers used to more direct sales tactics between buyer and seller. The use of mobile technology in China is also limited based on distribution of cellular technology and cultural adoption of this modernized selling format. Therefore, the ability to gain more market share through mobile technology sales was limited or eBay (Chan, 2007). Lack of ability to use mobile sales and marketing in this region limited the brand visibility of eBay with potential target markets and thus made it difficult to establish brand loyalty for eBay.

The inability to use technology to improve the competitive position of eBay posed significant expansion problems. Pricing was another reason why eBay found difficulty in Asia, where the fixed price auction format made it appear to buyers and sellers that product listing costs were much higher than competition. The ability of sellers to contact customers and the flexibility of GMarket gives the buyer the ability to instantly reduce prices or add certain incentives, which makes eBay look rigid in pricing structures that is a turnoff to the price-sensitive Chinese buyers.

Thus, it should be said that place, product, price and promotion were all negatively impacted by competition and the current sales platform being used by eBay. Simply exporting American talent and technology to this market was a poor market entry strategy since the Chinese online sales environment differed culturally than in the United States. It was a mistake to think that Chinese buyers would maintain the same market characteristics and therefore eBay entered this market without adaptable tools to better fit market conditions and buyer/seller attitudes and brand familiarity with other auction and sales competition.

eBay simply did not have any quality tools to differentiate the business from competition other than mobile marketing which is not a common sales practice in the Asian markets. References Chan, Isabelle (2007) “EBay Has Its Eye on Southeast Asia “, 29 Oct 2007, Business Week. Retrieved August 27, 2012 from http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/oct2007/gb20071029_295570.htm Ihlwan, Moon (2006) “Gmarket eclipses eBay in Asia”, 28 June 2006, Business Week. Retrieved August 27, 2012 from http://www.

businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jun2006 /gb20060628_910393.htm?chan=search RUNNING HEADER: Google and Asian Online Censorship Google and Asian Online Censorship BY YOU YOUR SCHOOL INFO HERE DATE HERE Google and Asian Online Censorship In Asia, Google faced many problems with establishing a market presence and gaining consumer revenues associated with its search engine business. In China, the government censors much of