Opportunities and threats of online auctions - eBid Case Study

[mandy]

The internet and e-commerce has revolutionised everyday lives of individuals and businesses, facilitating numerous everyday activities such as managing online bank accounts to online retail therapies. BBC (2006) reported that the online shopping is a preference for one-third of all UK consumers, spending £8.2bn in 2006; an increase of over 28% from 2004. Online auctions constitute a considerable portion of these online transactions, amounting to the total transactions of 1.3 million (Albert, 2002) every day, facilitated by e-auctions. These trends substantiated that the consumer trends are shifting from conventional high-street shopping to the internet shopping. This essay critically examines the opportunities and threats elicited by UK’s second biggest e-auction portal and initiates with a brief definition of e-auction, company background and business operations. This is followed by an extensive discourse into the opportunities and threats associated with the end-users of these auctions and the consequent impact of them on eBid itself. Finally, the essay provides a conclusion with an assertion of who benefits from these auctions the most, based on the case-related opportunities and threats discussed...

EBid is an example of the clicks only e-auction portal and was established in 1999 by Gary Swell (Brennan, 2006). The web auctioneer has 80,000 registered users...

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