Stubhub Case

BY SUMI

ABOUT STUBHUB
Stubhub is an online ticket trading website which allows people to buy and sell their tickets online. The tickets range from major sporting events like NBA, NFL, WWE etc. to music concerts and live events. The company, presently acquired by e-bay started small but because of its excellent business model, became the major competitor of e-bay and largest ticket trading website. The Stubhub was founded by Eric Baker and Jeff Fluhr, two 1st year M.B.A students at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Their idea was to create a bridge between a buyer and seller so that trading of tickets could be done in an efficient way. The company was successful in creating a good environment and minimizing the harassment
But Stubhub was able to serve as a bridge between the buyer and seller. Its unique guarantee which protected the interest of both buyers and sellers had an edge over other companies. Ticketmaster was and is charging and excess money in the form of convenience fee and that is criticized by the customers. E-bay is a wide database of online shopping, therefore it lacks a specialization in selling tickets. When company entered the market, ticket scalpers were at boon. They charged unreasonable prices and promoted hoarding. The company reduced its risk by keeping the policy of no ticket inventory. The sellers and buyers can select the event and venue for the search of tickets. The major difference that created difference between Stubhub and E-bay was of listing fee. Sellers felt insecure on listing on E-Bay because if there tickets are not sold, they still have to bear the listing fee. At Stubhub, this was not the case. Also, the design of website is user friendly. For every event, the options to buy or sell are listed parallel. By doing this, Stubhub supersedes Amazon and E-bay where buying and selling account options are different. At E-bay sellers are known by their ratings which develop with time. This makes buyers skeptical about new sellers and the sellers with poor ratings. Stubhub eliminated this and took guarantee of all the
The reason that these companies are closest competitors is because of their versatility. Other companies mentioned above either sell the tickets to a specific type of event or in a specific area. Stubhub differentiates and leads its competitors because of following reasons:
 Stubhub lets the seller list the tickets for free. If tickets is not sold, the seller doesn't lose the listing fee as he/she will do in e-bay. This gives sellers an economic advantage.
 Stubhub charges money from the buyer only after the delivery of tickets and then gives seller his amount. In this way, Stubhub acts as a bridge and single point of contact between buyer and seller. In contrast, on e-bay, the transaction method is comparatively insecure as buyer pays to seller. Fraud can occur at occasions in these types of transactions.
 Stubhub offers pick-up points for tickets at specific locations. This enables buyers to pick up tickets. This feature is provided by none of its competitors.
 Stubhub offers only one type of delivery, i.e two day shipping through FedEx which ensures the safe delivery and enables the tracking of ticket. On E-bay, Ticketmaster or Coasttocoasttickets.com, there are certain delivery methods which may delay the receipt of