What makes eBay successful - the real value and the real power at eBay - is the community. It's the buyers and sellers coming together and forming a marketplace.
What makes eBay successful.. the real value and the real power at eBay is the community. It's the buyers and sellers coming together and forming a marketplace.
When we talk about the things at Airbnb that are challenging and that they are going to have to overcome, the parallels with eBay are across the board. It's community management. It's making sure the marketplace is in balance - the right amount of buyers and sellers.
Bringing buyers and sellers together through a single platform is not a new idea - most of us know about eBay's success - but with advancing technology comes new innovative methods for businesses to connect customers with those who want to offer services.
Ebay's success as a company depends on the success of the community of sellers.
Some of the best things that I ever sold on Ebay, I bought on Ebay - just for way less.
eBay had two main things that really spoke to me. It enabled individuals to do things that they could not have done without the Web. The second thing was what Pierre said: "People have met their best friends on eBay. What this has enabled is truly online community."
I was an eBay addict before my first album hit big. I wanted to go on this tour of the world, so I started selling everything on eBay.
A captivating moment was when I realized that people, including myself, were not saying, “I just bought an item on eBay.” They were saying, “I just won an item on eBay.” It was the thrill of the hunt. I bought a car on eBay.
Airbnb is creating a new marketplace for space and is facing many of the challenges that eBay faced back in 1998 when they created a new marketplace for goods.
Most of what we know about sales comes from a world of information asymmetry, where for a very long time sellers had more information than buyers. That meant sellers could hoodwink buyers, especially if buyers did not have a lot of choices or a way to talk back.
For me, the international expansion of eBay was the best idea. We are now in 35 countries, and have a huge global network. The second best one was the acquisition of PayPal - the wallet on eBay.
From what I was able to hear," Dane said, "Tara dumped off a surprise baby with your mother, who's planning to sell it on eBay." "Social Services," I said. "She hasn't thought of eBay yet.
I don't know anybody that buys more shoes on eBay than me. I like eBay because I can always find rare gems in my size. I always have upwards of 40 sneakers in my cart at any given time.
Now it's easy for someone to set up a storefront and reach the entire world in very modest ways. So these technologies that we thought would dis-intermediate traditional sellers gave more people the tools to be sellers. It also changed the balance of power between sellers and buyers.
L.A. has a lot of good flea markets - the Rose Bowl is always a good one. I have taken to eBay, too. Some of my favorite things - especially chairs, for some reason - I got on eBay.
PayPal benefited tremendously from having a close partnership with the eBay marketplace. It was a natural fit at the time.