Strategic Planning & Threats

EBay - strategic planning, threats

Founded in September 1995, eBay is The World's Online Marketplace® for the sale of goods and services by a diverse community of individuals and small businesses. Today, the eBay community includes more than a hundred million registered members from around the world. People spend more time on eBay than any other online site, making it the most popular shopping destination on the Internet.

Although eBay has emerged as one of the few very successful dot-com businesses of the late nineties, there are always threats that can present themselves. If a threat is not recognized through strategic planning, it may be too late to react at a later time. William C. Cobb, President of eBay North Americas who is in charge of the strategic planning for eBay said in a 2005 memo to eBay subscribers that one of the most important pieces of planning is to do something that your customer wants. According to polls eBay has conducted, confidence in "safe trading" is one of the most important issues to eBay members. With this being said, a lack of trust in the system could become a substantial threat to eBay as a company. Because eBay is merely a marketplace for people to buy and sell goods, maintaining a perception of fair dealing and trust is vital to ongoing success. If people lost faith that the items they are buying would arrive to them as they expected, eBay could fold up as quickly as they appeared. Because of this threat, eBay employs a Trust and Safety team that is responsible for maintaining the feeling of trust to eBay traders. This team mostly works behind the scenes but is also involved with contacting law enforcement if the need arises.