MKT 575: E-Commerce with eBay Assignment

ECommerce Site Design Using eBay.com

RATIONALE

ECommerce is the application of electronic technologies, increasingly Web-based technologies, to the commercial operations of organizations. While much attention is given to the transactional processes of buying and selling, ECommerce applications have implications for the full range of business operations. Indeed the central challenge in managing ECommerce has been integrating business processes around the customer-centric characteristics of interactive shopping and/or procurement systems. While these problems are attacked most vigorously by large organizations with significant resources, they are fundamental components of even the most modest electronic commerce enterprises, including the millions of buyers and sellers in the eBay community. Indeed, according to Time, eBay is one of the major success stories in the new economy

This exercise uses the eBay system to introduce you to the issues, procedures and strategies of ECommerce. Working in teams of four, you will use the eBay structure to develop a ECommerce site and supporting marketing plan summary. In this assignment, you will use the Web design tools you are developing to address the ECommerce issues discussed in the text and class exercises.

As you develop and publish pages to your Web site, you should consult the broad range of authoring support sites available to you. You should also review the list of stylistic standards for sites developed in this course. Eventually, you will also incorporate several utilities and/or Java applets into your site as well. Consult the course Web Authoring Resource Page for information on these resources. You should also visit the Web Site Design Forum in the Course Discussion Board on a regular basis to learn about the tips/resources discovered by your colleagues and to post information about similar resources which you have found.

Part 1: eBay Overview; Buying Procedures and Opportunities

In this exercise, you will familiarize yourselves with the procedures for buying items on the eBay system. Specifically, using the Help, Services, Glossary and Discussion Board support structures of eBay, perform the following tasks;

register as an eBay user (only one userid per team is required),
review purchasing options identify buying opportunities using directories, galleries and searches,
review bidding procedures (direct, proxy and 'Buy it Now') in regular and Dutch auctions,
review the various payment and shipping options offered by sellers of specific auctions,
review the terms, benefits and costs of PayPal and BillPoint payment options,
review the Wholesale Goods eBay product category for opportunities for bulk, wholesale purchases for your team's site,
review the TradeOut site for opportunities for bulk, surplus purchases for your team's site (registration required), and
review the Business Exchange site for equipment purchasing opportunities for your eBusiness,

Upon completing these activities, post a message from your team to the appropriate Forum in the Course Discussion Board in which you; 1) explain the concepts of proxy bid, regular and Dutch auctions, 2) describe one purchasing opportunity you found attractive in each of the three linked sites.

Part 2: Competitor Analysis

The high transparency of the eBay structure provides significant opportunities for examining buyer and seller behaviors in a dynamic electronic market. In this exercise, you will use exploit these opportunities to analyze the strategies of potential competitors. This competitor analysis is one of the vital initial steps in the formulation of effective eBusiness strategies. Specifically, you will use the eBay information structure to perform the following tasks;

select a product category and identify the make and model number of a specific product (i.e. Bose 201),
search current auctions for offerings of this product, note the sellers, initial/current prices and numbers of bidders in each auction,
repeat the search but direct it toward completed auctions, note the sellers, initial/final prices and numbers of bidders in each auction,
from these auctions select as seller with a high feedback number and, if possible, the "My eBay" symbol. Click on the symbol to view information provided by the seller. Click on the feedback number (in parentheses) to view eBay's Feedback Forum and the entries posted there by people who have interacted with this seller,
from the original auction page, follow the "see seller's other auctions" link to view other items offered by the seller,
from the Search page conduct a search "By Seller" to include listings of current and completed auctions by this seller, (You may also use the "By Bidder" option to determine if this seller is also an active eBay buyer.)
using these resources, examine the seller's auctions, looking for patterns in the products offered, shipping and payment arrangements,
review the seller's auctions looking for links to an external non-eBay Web site. If you find one, review that site to assess the role of eBay in the seller's overall eBusiness strategy (i.e., is eBay the primary point of sale or a promotional technique to draw visitors to the seller's primary eBusiness site?).

Upon completing these activities, post a message from your team to the appropriate Forum in the Course Discussion Board in which you; 1) identify the seller and provide a links to an active auction and, if appropriate, the seller's Web site, and 2) summarize your conclusions about the seller's eBusiness strategy.

Part 3: Customer Analysis

The transparency of the eBay structure also provides opportunities for customer analysis. In this exercise, you will use exploit these opportunities to analyze the behavior of selected eBay buyers. Understanding customers and their behavior is an essential first step in formulating effective marketing strategies in both physical and virtual marketplaces. Indeed, as we shall see, user profiling is one of the fundamental tools of successful eBusiness operations. Specifically, you will use the eBay information structure to perform the following tasks;

select a product category and identify the make and model number of a specific product (i.e. Bose 201),
search completed auctions for this item and select an auction with a high number of bids,
from the Auction page, follow the "bid history" link to view the bidding pattern for the auction, noting the different approaches various bidders have used,
from these auctions select as buyer with a high feedback number and, if possible, the "My eBay" symbol. Click on the symbol to view information provided by the buyer. Click on the feedback number (in parentheses) to view eBay's Feedback Forum and the entries posted there by people who have interacted with this buyer,
from the Search page conduct a search "By Bidder" to include listings of current and completed auctions in which this buyer bid,
using these resources, examine the buyer's bidding behavior, looking for patterns in the product interest and bidding strategies, and
from the Search page conduct a search "By Seller" option to determine if this buyer is also an active eBay seller, noting any relationship between the buying and selling patterns of the buyer.

Upon completing these activities, post a message from your team to the appropriate Forum in the Course Discussion Board in which you; 1) identify the buyer and provide a links to an active auction and, if appropriate, the buyer's Web site, and 2) summarize your conclusions about the buyer's interests, purchasing behavior and/or selling behavior on eBay.

It is now time to start planning your eBusiness strategy design and implementation. You should use the eBusiness Planning page to help you with this process. Your team should be thinking about your implementation plan as you proceed through the remainder of these exercises.

Part 4: eBay Marketing Strategies and Tactics

The archival nature of the eBay system allows users to analyze the history of past auctions to determine the best techniques for attracting bidders and achieving the best prices. In this exercise, you will review past auctions for a specific product to

select a product category and identify the make and model number of a specific product (i.e. Bose 201),
search completed auctions for this item, continuing this process with other products until you have find one with at least ten completed auctions,
review the range of bids and selling prices within the auctions, comparing the selling prices to the best available from electronic retailers as identified through the RUSure and MySimon sites,
review several of the auctions, including the ones with the highest and lowest prices, comparing them on each of the following characteristics,

Auction Design and Listing Characteristics
Initial bid price
Final selling price, Relation to market price
Number of auction visitors, bids and bidders
Product description: depth and quality
Pictures of product
Links to manufacturer/Reviewer Sites?
Link to Seller's eCommerce Site?
Payment Options: Check, Money Order Credit Card, PayPal, Billpoint?

Upon completing these activities, post a message from your team to the appropriate Forum in the Course Discussion Board in which you; 1) identify the product and list of auctions you have analyzed, and 2) summarize your conclusions about the marketing practices which have produced the most activity and best prices in these auctions.

Part 5: Designing eBay Listings

In the previous exercises, you used you have used the information tools of the eBay system to analyze competitors, buyers and marketing techniques. You are ready to list your first eBay auction item. Later, you will provide links from your eBay auctions to your eBusiness site. In this exercise, you will design an eBay auction listing which must include the following;

a well written, error free description of the product and its specifications,
a link to the manufacturer, if appropriate,
a picture of the product,
a listing of payment options available to successful bidders, and
an Honesty.com counter to measure visits to the auction.

If your team does not wish to regisiter it's own credit card information, you may list through the eBusiness Incubator Club's eBay account. You should also use the Club's PayPal account to facilitate credit card payments. To do this, you must work with the professor and/or graduate assistants to gain access to these resources.

Upon completing these activities, post a message to the appropriate Forum in the Course Discussion Board in which you 1) provide the URL for your team's auction and 2) explain the rationale designing the listing as you did.

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