Granted, Ebay is in an enviable market position,
and is doing many, many things very well, but better than Steve Case at AOL, for
example?
EBAY's growth has no limitation to be seen at this moment. While AOL may be severely hampered by the major shift in the access medium. AOL doesn't have a solid broad band plan. However, eBay doesn't have that problem, it can thrive no matter how people get to their sites, via dialup or ADSL or cable modem. eBay is extremely scalable, while AOL is not so scalable.
Thus, if my experience is any indication, ebay may never establish the
size of user base that AOL, amzn or yhoo might. (Yes, these are my other
contenders for the "most successful company" distinction.)
Don't think eBay will sit still and forever stay with its person-to-person business model. EBAY has already started to mull the fixed-price auction, which is really no difference from Amazon's retail model. Established vendors put their products for sale at a fixed price(retail price) and the first bidder get the product. There will be less of fraught problem because the vendors are established names as solid as Amazon's. Another major move that EBAY is going to execute is the regional classified market. They will roll out LA regional classified by May. Residences in LA metro area can use eBay regional site to buy used cars, rent apartments and buy and sell anything that would otherwise be very difficult to do on national site. LA people can also put up "male seeking female" advertising on the site for a fee that is much lower than LA times. Anything can go on the regional sites. After LA site becomes feasible, eBay can easily duplicate it to SF site, NYC site, Chicago site and even Toyko site. Do you now see the potential? |
