Ebay Japan
Adrian Clynes
1/18/13
International Management
Reflection paper on eBay in Japan
There are many reasons why things didn’t work for eBay; one of the main reasons was the dominance of Yahoo Auctions in japan. Since they are the first ones to get in the market, they have more experience of how to fit in the Japanese market and these leads to a series of things attract new sellers, which brought new buyers and according to Masahiro Inoue, president CEO of Yahoo Japan in auctions more buyers bring sellers (pg285). What really help Yahoo Auctions was through a joint venture called Softbank one of the largest internet providers in japan.
EBay never had a good start since the beginning they establish, they were a lot of reason why thing didn’t work out. The main reasons are: been the second company establishing online auctions in japan, cultural misunderstanding (which includes methods of payments and fee), not a strong joint venture. Each of this factors are things that do make a difference when you first start to expand globally on any country. The demands and needs are not the same for every costumer and that’s why there expectations are different. One of the problem of not being the first on getting on the online auction business, is that you need to build a credibility in order to have loyal customers and new customers wanting to join in. when yahoo japan got in first in the online auction business, it created a hierarchy this means that people are comfortable using the service and they know that they will be satisfied. By the time eBay entered the market Yahoo had develop a loyal customer base (pg285). They have more of a pressure on trying to make decisions. They do not have Softbank as their venture and they do not have a business plan that culturally won’t be able to fit in Japan, the expectations for a second competitor are much higher than from the first one who started doing that kind of business. So eBay didn’t meet the expectations that
1/18/13
International Management
Reflection paper on eBay in Japan
There are many reasons why things didn’t work for eBay; one of the main reasons was the dominance of Yahoo Auctions in japan. Since they are the first ones to get in the market, they have more experience of how to fit in the Japanese market and these leads to a series of things attract new sellers, which brought new buyers and according to Masahiro Inoue, president CEO of Yahoo Japan in auctions more buyers bring sellers (pg285). What really help Yahoo Auctions was through a joint venture called Softbank one of the largest internet providers in japan.
EBay never had a good start since the beginning they establish, they were a lot of reason why thing didn’t work out. The main reasons are: been the second company establishing online auctions in japan, cultural misunderstanding (which includes methods of payments and fee), not a strong joint venture. Each of this factors are things that do make a difference when you first start to expand globally on any country. The demands and needs are not the same for every costumer and that’s why there expectations are different. One of the problem of not being the first on getting on the online auction business, is that you need to build a credibility in order to have loyal customers and new customers wanting to join in. when yahoo japan got in first in the online auction business, it created a hierarchy this means that people are comfortable using the service and they know that they will be satisfied. By the time eBay entered the market Yahoo had develop a loyal customer base (pg285). They have more of a pressure on trying to make decisions. They do not have Softbank as their venture and they do not have a business plan that culturally won’t be able to fit in Japan, the expectations for a second competitor are much higher than from the first one who started doing that kind of business. So eBay didn’t meet the expectations that