E Bay Due To The Price example essay topic

Changing Times Make for Unhappy e Bay Customers How much is too much, or how much is enough? This is an economic question that every successful business will have to evaluate in order to remain an icon in the marketplace. Today's business world is unlike any time in comparison. There has never been more opportunity for small ventures to turn into major financial companies overnight with the use of the World Wide Web. It is true that many of these overnight wonders are short lived and go unnoticed; however we do have the elite group of companies that have made their mark in our everyday lives. e Bay is one of those companies that have made good use of this opportunity. e Bay Inc. is considered as the world's leading online personal trading community. Founded in 1995, e Bay is available 24 hours, 7 days a week with more than one million registered users.

In the 4th quarter 2003, e Bay reported a net income of 935.8 million dollars; up 44% and their full year net income for 2003 was 3.27 billion dollars, up 51% for the same time last year. Even with their noted economic success this company still finds a need to raise fees for the use of their service. On the positive side of the moral and ethical matter, there are great things that e Bay offers as well as provides for its customers. People with many dreams of becoming entrepreneurs and starting successful businesses has found e Bay and answer to their prayers. Many people who don't have the resources to use an outside place to start their businesses; have used e Bay to sell their items straight from their homes to save money.

Some of their businesses have even grown so that they are now able to rent a separate space to run their small companies. This is a blessing that probably would have not been a reality if not for the large Internet auction service named e Bay. e Bay is not a dirty word in their vocabulary; it is a spring board to independence and an opportunity for a good way of life. Although some have used e Bay's services to cheat and steal, e Bay has started a foundation that helps in communities all across the country. Meg Whitman, president and CEO of e Bay Inc. made a statement; "Giving back to the community has been an essential part of e Bay since the very beginning. In 1998, with a donation of 107,250 shares of pre-IPO stock, e Bay created a charitable fund known as the e Bay Foundation TM. Today, e Bay Foundation remains an important part of e Bay and serves as the primary vehicle through which e Bay contributes to community organizations.

Annually, e Bay Foundation provides grants to numerous non-profit groups that are working to make local communities better places to live and work". . e Bay is noted for giving back to not only the community but to its employees as well with gift matching, and charitable grants. This is something that not all companies provide for the people who work for them. Millions of dollars have been giving out in grants, volunteer philanthropy and charitable donations. Perhaps e Bay should police better the activities and practices of the services and items that are offered on their web highway; but that kind of in depth background research would only serve to drive up already elevating operational costs. That would result even more disgruntled customers.

It seems so easy for a person or persons with a deceptive nature to use e Bay to take advantage of non-suspecting customers; this is the reason for the saying "Buyer Beware". Consumers must be really be aware of internet offers and things that seem to good to be true. This issue has also caused negative backlash from sellers and has driven e Bay's stock down 20% for the first time in two years. e Bay has been receiving criticism about raising prices on selling items and the negative feedback has been circulating all over the country. This auction icon could lose some of their sellers to other bidding sites such as Overstock. com or Amazon. com. The other auction sites are not as well known and it will take a few years for these other players to gain the notoriety to rival e Bay. Unfortunately the only people who are going to hurt by the negative backlash are the sellers that it affects.

This is roughly the large volume sellers and users with e Bay Stores. The extra features that are completely optional will cost considerably more with the new price plan ranging from 40% to 52% increases. These small business entrepreneurs feel that their profits are being suffocated with the new extra fees and price hike on certain services. The seller could raise their prices to compensate, but it will deter buyers who are looking for a good deal. There has been a drop in auctions since the plan was announced, but it will only be temporary.

Ultimately, the protests of the e Bay Store owner will go relatively unheard and will be ineffective. Since e Bay is the pioneer of online auctions, it will be a long time before the other auction sites succeed to become a household name. There will not be a mass exodus of users leaving e Bay due to the price hike. Like all other companies that announce price hikes, the urgency and panic of the public make the issue seem worse than what it really is.

The consequences of e Bay's price hike will have little effect on the volume of auctions when the dust settles. e Bay is a corporation that survives on profit like every other company. Just as every company in the United States and around the world, fees are going to go up. It is an inevitable. The negativity that this announcement has made will probably have no effect on e Bay in the long term. The spiritual ramifications of e Bay's price increase are not a clear issue. It is not an Enron scandal, and will probably never be discussed other than this.

However, there are spiritual ramifications involved, even if we don't see them. One thing that could be discussed is greed. Did e Bay raise their prices due to greed? In this instance, it seems they didn't. The current increases will only bring in 60 million dollars. That certainly seems like quite a bit, but it is actually only about 1% of their expected 2005 earnings of 4.3 billion dollars.

The increase is to help manage certain aspects of the seller's items such as pictures of the item and the Buy-It-Now option. With e Bay's greed not being an issue, we now should look at the customer. Most customers that are angry about the increase will probably just let their feelings pass. Some of them may even decide to quit using e Bay and move their business elsewhere. Other customers may, however, find themselves right in the middle of a spiritual, as well as a moral and ethical issue.

This would be the customer that might want to get their money back from e Bay by artificially inflating their prices. This could be done a couple of different ways. First, they could just ask a higher price for their product than what it is worth. This would actually be acceptable since no crime has been committed. If someone pays more for a product than what it's worth, it is really the buyer's fault.

The second thing a seller could do is getting pretty close to being illegal. This is when they list an item at a certain price and working alone or with a group, they run up the price by placing false bids on the listed item. This in turn would make the item seem more valuable to honest bidders, who would pay more for the item. This would be about as close to lying and cheating as you could get. This is also very illegal in certain industries such as electrical power trading. When business leaders make decisions, they should always take into consideration what type of ramifications the decision will have on their customers.

Bibliography

Eunjung Ariana. (2005, January 6, ) Thieves Find Exactly what their looking for On Ebay.
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xml. Page A 01 Swartz, J., (2005) Some e Bay sellers are going, going, gone.
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htm. Whitman, M., (1995-2005) Giving back to the community is simply a part of Ebay.
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