Internatioanl Manangment: E-bay in Japan : strategic and cultural Missteps Discuss - Essay Example

By late 2001, most analysts were of the idea that eBay Japan needed to admit failure and sell its stake to a larger local player. This paper seeks to find out the cultural and structural missteps that eBay made in this market. EBay is committed to creating an enduring and great company that seeks to make a global difference, which informed their decision to enter the Japanese market. For one, they spent a lot of resources on add-ons rather than advertising in the market. This was a wrong move since most people did not know of their existence.

Yahoo Auctions also possessed a stronger brand presence, which aided them in a market that identifies with strong brands. Their decision to wait in making their entry also allowed Yahoo Auctions to build this strong brand presence. In addition, this paper will show that their decision to use credit cards was a misstep, considering that Japan is a money-based culture with most preferring bank transfers and cash-based exchanges. Table of Contents Contents Page 1. Executive Summary…………………………………………2 2.

Introduction…………………………………………………4 3. Literature review…………………………………………….5 4. Findings and Analysis……………………………………….7 5. Conclusion…………………………………………………..11 6. . The organization is now the manager of ebay.com, which is a shopping website and online auction where businesses and individuals can sell and buy a variety of services and goods globally. The website, on top of its auction like sales, has also expanded into the standard shopping, SKU, ISBN, UPC, online classified advertisements, online money transfers, and online event trading of tickets.

EBay’s current strategy involves international expansion that has seen it expand into over 24 countries, in which the only countries they have failed in are Japan and Taiwan, as well as New Zealand. In the former two, Yahoo! Already had a head start, while Trade Me was dominant in New Zealand. Since eBay entered Japan in the year 2000, it began to struggle. By late 2001, most analysts were of the idea that eBay Japan needed to admit failure and sell its stake to a larger local player. However, even then, eBay would still have faced an uphill struggle.

EBay announced, in early 2002 that it was exiting the Japanese market following its failure to ingrain itself into the Japanese market as it lagged behind Yahoo Japan (Fletcher, 2010: p260). They also announced that they would shut the Japanese language site with all customers in Japan directed to the US based site. At this point, they were the top site in all other 18 countries that they operated in with their strategy in Japan being one of their rare failures. This paper seeks to discuss the missteps that led to failure of their strategy.

Literature Review EBay is committed to creating an enduring and great company that seeks to make a global difference. In order to attain success in the long term, the company ensures to make all its employees and clients empowered to point