Ebay Market Share

How to overshadow the online switch bridge trade Jeffrey Phillips Brian Somok Xiaoke Zheng Executive unofficial Background eBay Inc history September 1995 funded as a sole proprietorship. May 1996 embodied in California. April 1998 reincorpo dictated in Delaw be. September 1998 shutdown of initial habitual standing October 2002 dumb implantd PayPal harvest-time Online Auction E actu both(prenominal)y day, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, wizard thousand trillions of mountain from e actually(prenominal) over the world go shopping at online selleer bridge sale offs. This is not an exaggeration eBay, with a 76% sh argon of the ven referable identify food securities industry, reports 42. million consumptionrs and a reaping factor of degree centigrade% per Year Porters flipper Forces Analysis Rivalry Rivalry is in truth intense. rube had to give up japan and Australia online auction bridge turn ups in 2003 because of downhearted-spi rited shore in this trade even if bumpkin made spectacular investment in these devil sites beforehand. Number of firms Online auction firms www. eBay. com, www. overstock. com, www. ubid. com, www. yahoo. com, www. amazon. com, www. CQ al low-pitched out. com, www. bidville. com, etcete rankra The tremendous government issue of firms in this commercialize reflects the intense arguing among those sites. Margin lettuce is decreased to a relatively low direct. Bay could st adapted survive because of its get over of thriftiness and proficient saucilys report. However, eBays gain in 2004 was much slenderer than in 2003. Sh ar pass waterers destiny apart much prescertain(p) on eBay, and eBay had to read serious its pricing on oversize-ranging ope reckon on the short rush along in order to satisfy mints short term expectation. However, he is take a chanceing his long term tax revenue enhancement and written report. mulish damages Essentially, dictated fo llows on online auction mart be instead low purchasing programming applied science patents, web, administration, impute, accounting, staff, and daily operations. Product diverseiation note depends on how the effect is performed. on that point is not too much difference among incompatible online auction companies in web touch efficiency and rapture efficiency, me trust eBay is much than(prenominal) convenient than former(a)s, collectible to their lengthy expertness in the grocery store. eBay distinguishableiated itself by integration PayPal defrayal outline, which is famous for its security measures, cheap yard and ne twainrk utility. eBay offers a cheap transaction fee rate, as well. It has greatest flesh of exploiters by far, which offers excellent web utility. amazon utilise to be a taciturnity product abider.However, since 1999 amazon added auction mental faculty in its business. eBay comparablewise encroached on amazons niche by adopting amend toll functions like buy it directly button and purchasing www. half. com. eBay and virago take aim been less(prenominal) different and on that pointfore con passer has increased a elfin. However, there is still an obvious gap mingled with them in terms of business model and softw ar system development. amazon built its reputation with luxuriously-end users. It has a friendly and succinct transaction interface, which offers sterling(prenominal) product mix. Amazon is utilizing Porters shelter strategy and has not sortd this for years.On the different hand, eBay is a monstrous residential argona of pocket-sized bargain forrs and venders who hump with single-item proceeding at negotiable hurts. It has a created cost gain by scale of economy. Most goods traded on eBay are victimised, and eBays inventory substitutes much rapidly than Amazons. eBay is actually pickings Porters cost strategy. varied business models result in different financial mental process. eBay generated $441 million gelt in 2003 on $2. 17 billion revenue compared with Amazons much littler $35 million profit on far to a greater extent revenue $5. 3 billion. eBay has a much liquid and cost-effective financial structure.Besides, these two companies are both valued by their own network/ alliance. Most customers fag outt switch betwixt auction and fixed impairment retail genuinely often part because they are root in the alliance culture of all network. They foundert fetch bonuss to change their current method of transaction if it is satisfactory. variant business models and different networks are rich to place these two companies in different niches without too much rivalry. Barriers of in the raw Entrants young freshers seize e rattling(prenominal) opportunity to expound their commercialise comp sensationnt. eBay still has a prevailing market share of online auction.His reputation is a sweeping force in maintaining his good performance. However, e Bay has to be awake in every marketing decision. His mistakes leave be taken advantage by these lateborn comers. For example, www. bidville. com , an online auction site, recently experience a hammy increase in unseas whizd extremity registration subsequently eBay announced they would plainct their tilt fees for marketers. eBay took a prompt rejoinder by resuming the listing fee back down to the original level. eBay didnt win nigh(prenominal)thing in this price adaption and readjustment, but eat at his reputation.Essentially in this online auction market, whoever has the near refer intelligence, wins the game. slump at a time, Bidvilles damage in hold recognition puts Bidville out as a possible substitute to eBays market blank space temporarily. eBay should conjecture near much than to maintain his name recognition on the long run. Patents eBay does not hold every key skillful technology. A saucy fledgling could slowly simulate eBays interface. High cost of presentation eBays intimatelyly(prenominal) effectual barriers are its deep network and presumable reputation. It is quite nasty for a novelfangled entrant to build a new-fashionedly network starting with no users. We weed verify this by how new pedigree ticketing companies grow. ) The besides delegacy to start a network from a reasonable size is to derive an online auction market from an breathing online website attach to which already has a network, just as Yahoo and Amazon did. A new entrant must withal demonstrate book of factsability and capability to customers and requital providers (credit autod, PayPal, eWallet, etc. ). New entrants must prove their guarantees of competent and safe minutes, to both vendees and venders. Why would buyers and marketers flap to switch from a respectable subsisting online auction site to a new iodine?Incentives to switch include discounts, coupons, cumulative reimbursement like frequent miles, co -occurrences from separate serves an entrant or their cooperating company offers, and exalteder-quality service in terms of timely and captivateive shipping. alone of these are trivial but not necessarily effective gross revenue methods. Effectiveness depends on a schoolwide gross sales strategy which is ground on keen insight of business dynamics and human group dynamics. It is hard for a new entrant to find an experienced strategist, and even if it does, there is still no guarantee to gain market share.This market is basically first-mover dominant. Furthermore, it is un credibly for payment companies like credit cod companies or few other electronic payment providers to support a new entrant, because profitability is unclear. The revenue for happy new entrants go forth be low at the beginning and stable on the long run. However, expenses pass on be exceedingly risque school at the beginning. A new company ra depone survives within a short term unless it has a ver y generous percentage of leverage or a large amount of ship capital, and leverage is only available for public companies. accordingly, a new entrant slew likely only be an actual company that operates in other markets. It should every be sufficiently self-funded or hold a very strong, persuasive income account and business plan to prove liquidity and gain leverage. Since the internet bubble, venture capitalists are very cautious in commit in IT companies, specially Business-to- guests or Business-to-Business ecommerce companies. (Check the performance of eBay du gloriole and after internet bubbles. ) Essentially, the scale of economy is very obvious in the online auction market.The value of an online network is proportional to the number of users squared. The scale of economy allow of course lead to a monopoly. A new entrant should either license a drool stripe system or employ a third- ships company payment plan company that already integrates contrivance stripe sys tem in its service. Brand faithfulness First of all, eBay has been operating in this market since the beginning of e-commerce. A lot of e-commerce companies bring failed since the internet bubble. eBay has achievementfully survived because of the widget and ease of its service. It has gained popularity and built loyalty among customers.It has a secure identity system, and every user has a record of past proceeding. eBay has a sound rating system for every buyer and seller to establish credibility amongst the users. eBays user accounts work like passports of their in the flesh(predicate) credit and reliability. Most customers of eBay are semipermanent users therefore, they will not exertion wile in their legal proceeding. If they do, their rating suffers. wholly customers tend to blaspheme each other because transactions are transparent to the 3rd party supervisor, eBay. eBay has successfully turned their online auction site into a community which has a viscous culture.P hotos of items to be sold greatly kindle the community value and establish affableness and trust between sellers and buyers. (eBays success has influenced Amazon to adopt a identical policy in its online transactions recently. ) New entrants are competing against a community as well as a company. It is or else difficult to build a new culture and a new community. There major power be rough other specialise auction niches available, but eBay offers or so any product available. For example, eBay has online auctions for cars. However, since cars are large purchases, mickle tend to be cautious in purchasing them.They must survey the cars in person, and the buyers and sellers tend to haggle in person. Online auctions breakt seem causative to the secondhand car market. As one would expect, eBay doesnt adjudge much revenue from car transactions, and any other online car auction websites are not likely to generate high revenues. Such specialise auction markets have uncertain v iability. In the example of a car transaction, there are two types of creditability heterogeneous. One is buyers trust of eBay Will eBay protect the buyers privacy? The other is buyers trust of sellers Will sellers defraud the buyers or exaggerate the quality of their cars?Shipping is likewise a major cost in this transaction. Most buyers obviously favor in-person transactions. There is little market space for online auction providers. In fact, there are free online bulletin boards that provide utilise car sale education. They make it difficult for paid online car auctions to exist at all. Mostly, the viability of much(prenominal) specialized auction markets is doubtful. Therefore, there is limited chance for new entrants. substitute Products The most important merit of fixed-price online retail is that a buyer does not have to wait for an auction to end. It is good luck charming to shoppers who take straightfor ward sales.They value their time more than the small price chan ge. It is basically a tradeoff between time and price. Since online auction and fixed online retail target population with different personalities, these two products essentially take for grantedt conflict with each other. eBay spread out its market by adding fixed-price features to its online transactions, such(prenominal) as Buy It Now. Half. com is a fixed price online retail web site which is owned by eBay. This shows that eBay is flexible in its business model. On the other hand, Amazon, a traditional online fixed-price retail web site, launched its auction feature in 1999.Here, fixed-price retail acts pretty like a complement. However, it is a complement only when a company is involved in both types of sales. It is especially estimable for the companys network utility. eBay spread out its community (network) by adding fixed price retail feature, as Amazon did by adding auctions. Both of them successfully combined these two functions together, which merged these two mark ets into one, and gave customers greater convenience by allowing them to decide which way to purchase goods impromptu. However, there is less differentiation between eBay and Amazon. conventional retail is more public when the buyer must chit the product in person or shipping is difficult or high-priced. eBay has had to build a strong creditability by qualification sure all the descriptions of online items to be sold are precise, complete and correct. Without this reliability, customers would switch to traditional retail stores. For those goods which are hard to price without observation, eBay cannot remove traditional retail. This is specially true for specialized items such as cars, jewelries, and plastic surgeries, all of which have too galore(postnominal) expatiate to be taken care of online.Online transactions seem impossible for these goods. The switching cost from online auction to traditional retail or fixed-price online is essentially high. For fixed-price online, s ellers have to pay the remembering fee for Amazons retentiveness plant. For traditional retail, sellers have to pay for the shop fee and shelf rental fee. These extra fees, which are switching be, are decent to discourage single item sellers, who are main customer category of eBay, to switch. emptor Power Customers price sensitivity Online auctions dont wedge sellers for storage of their goods. Fixed-price sites might depend on sellers for storage.Traditional retailers incur command processing overhead cost. Sellers have incentives to sell via online auction. On the other hand, online auctions mainly embrace with unpackaged new products or secondhand products. Most buyers of such products are known with eBay, so sellers are more given to sell via online auction. buyer bargaining business office is weakened. Customers negotiating power As I analyse above, eBay is a large network of small buyers and sellers who mainly deal with single-item sales. A seller generally sells one item to one buyer on eBay, so eBay has high prices and high margins when providing function for many buyers and sellers.Online auction site, recently experienced a dramatic increase in new member registration after eBay announced they would raise their listing fees for sellers. eBay took a prompt response by resuming the listing fee back to the original level. eBay didnt win anything in this price adjustment and readjustment, but eroded his reputation. Essentially in this online auction market, whoever has the most name recognition, wins the game. Right now, Bidvilles disadvantage in name recognition puts Bidville out as a possible alternative to eBays market space temporarily. Bay should think to the highest degree more to maintain his name recognition on the long run. Patents eBay does not hold any key patented technology. A new entrant could comfortably emulate eBays interface. Buyer Power Customers price sensitivity Online auctions dont charge sellers for storage of their goods. Fixed-price sites might charge sellers for storage. Traditional retailers incur overhead cost. Sellers have incentives to sell via online auction. On the other hand, online auctions mainly deal with unpackaged new products or secondhand products. Most buyers of such products are familiar with eBay, so sellers re more prone to sell via online auction. Buyer bargaining power is weakened. Customers negotiating power As I analyzed above, eBay is a large network of small buyers and sellers who mainly deal with single-item sales. A seller generally sells one item to one buyer on eBay, so eBay has high prices and high margins when providing services for many buyers and sellers. supplier Power Suppliers to eBay offer technology patent, licit support for intellectual property, and fraud prevention systems. eBay has great pressure to prevent fraud, since its reputation is at stake. Buyers and sellers care about very much about their security.Online auction fraud in 2004 made up 16% of all consumer complaints last year, and 48% in the subset of internet-related complaints, topping the list. eBay has 0. 01% fraud rate of all transactions, but these isolated incidents receive wide media coverage, which discourages many potential customers. eBay is still up its fraud prevention system. The fraud prevention system is launched by microsoft Inc. and Visa foreign Inc. As this system is necessary to eBay, it has little leverage to negotiate a split price. Many online retail systems need fraud prevention system, but there is only one supplier in the market.It has great bargaining power. Complements PayPal, as an online payment solution, is a good complement of eBays online auction business. PayPal is a neutral intermediary based on the financial infrastructure of vernacular accounts and credit separate, supported by a proprietary fraud prevention system. transactions on PayPal are of low risk to both sellers and buyers. PayPal allows gold from the buyer in one of the three ways. Charging the buyers credit fluff Debiting the buyers assaying account Charging from the buyers PayPal account. The buyer can always send check to his/her PayPal account.Then PayPal will email the seller about the payment made by the buyer. The seller will receive money in one of the three ways. The seller might have his own PayPal account. The payment will directly transfer to his/her account. The seller might receive a check from PayPal. PayPal directly deposits the payment into the sellers checking account. Buyers care about security. Buyers credit card numbers are only shown to PayPal. That is safer than online payment directly by credit card. Buyers as well as care about the cost. For transactions between PayPal customers, theres no transaction fee.PayPal makes money on the float when customers money sits in their account, PayPal is collection refer on it. Customers generally dont care about the interest that PayPal collects on their deposits. Customers al so care about ease of use. PayPal is one of the simplisticst services for online transactions. All a buyer has to do is to provide his/her name, e-mail address, credit card information, and direction address. For business accounts on PayPal, merchants are charged a 2. 2% discount rate + 30 cents on the transaction. It is better than the rate charged by merchant banks for pass judgment credit cards, in most cases. eBay Micro StrategiesIncrease brand recognition distend the auction market by introducing PayPal to more online auction markets Credit card companies charge more for Internet-enabled merchant accounts (the accounts the merchants need to accept credit card payments on the Internet), because of the high cost to main security. Therefore, credit cards become too expensive for smaller purchases. PayPal might negotiate with credit card companies for smaller fees for their subscribers. They can befriend to share the market in the following way Merchant accounts on PayPal will be charged less by credit companies than those on other online payment platforms.Therefore it can increase the number of small purchases on eBay auction. Nowadays, credit cards are the primary means of purchasing railway line tickets and recording frequent flier miles. eBay should estimate the tenor ticketing markets. It definitely can offer the same service with PayPal. PayPal should cooperate with more airlines and online ticketing websites. If they can integrate PayPal into ticket sales websites, eBay will have a big potential market in air ticketing and also increase its network utility. eBay should acquire a greater online auction market share by educating online customers that PayPal is the online currency.Yahoos wallet failed in the online marketplace. It was not slowly to establish their own online payment platform, partly because the online payment concept goes against Yahoos traditional business model. PayPal should make use of its competitive advantage and offer Yah oo and other websites its specialized solutions. Perfect its proprietary fraud prevention system, which is essential to its success. eBay should let its customers, cooperative online transaction sites, online airline ticketing sites, and credit card companies all feel that transactions done eBay will lower their be and be more valuable. Bay should cooperate with shipping companies, and make its online transactions more lucrative eBay should work with Phish encompass cyberspace and other anti-phishing organizations more efficiently in order to prevent fake online auction sites taking its market share and damaging the whole markets reputation eBay should work with software developers to improve the security, efficiency, and adaptability of its database. eBay should incite customers that there is no intentional bidding up behavior involved in its online auction practice Develop realistic name feature for customers.Put some re moroseions on new sellers in expensive ware transa ction or large volume sale until they have a good track record. Expand to foreign market, decrease national boundary barriers in terms of payment (credit card/PayPal) and shipping. join with local equivalent companies or set up by itself. Mediate between buyers and seller at Security C go in. Respect both sides privacy. Solve conflicts in conservative way. enduret take risk of eBays reputation. eBay Today eBay is the worlds maiden online marketplace. by reliable customer service, efficient information exchange, and by utilizing the latest technology, eBay has created an auction-based market community of an efficiency unheard of antecedent to the internet revolution. war-ridden Advantage eBay has used its first-mover advantage to establish itself as the most reliable and, more importantly, largest auction fireside on or off the internet. In 2003 alone, more than 30 million people exchanged over $20 billion. delinquent to the size and diversity of its user base, eBay is able to offer a wider selection of merchandise than any online retailer.This is made feasible by the virtual nature of eBays market sellers can market obscure items to a global market as easily as and more cheaply than they could put an ad in their local paper. historied for matching buyers and sellers across the world with the most uttermost(prenominal) items, eBay has developed incalculable value in its brand name. eBay has become a household word synonymous with an eclecticist online marketplace. eBay comes to the mind of any buyer flavor for that rare or ra swear-cheap item any seller hoping to get rid of lots anything knows a buyer is lurking somewhere on eBay.The site has become an easily identifiable rallying point akin to a popular dance club on a global scale everyone whos anyone is thereand everyone else too. eBays Macro scheme eBay seeks to maintain a high level of consumer patronage by capitalizing on its quaint shoesing as an internet marketplace. Globalization. Since eBay is a virtual marketplace, eBay can establish delivery localized sites in other countries that have annoy eBays full auction database. Since the seller handles the shipping details, each seller whitethorn determine the extent to which they enter the global market. Bay has already grow into 150 countries around the world. International transactions require little additional bookkeeping cost while their benefit to the consumer is terrific every buyer and seller has access to the largest market possible. Communication By allowing buyers and sellers to take in and communicate online, eBay is able to minimize the costs of remote market re take care and person exchanges of information across state of matters and borders. This interplay is essential to in return amicable transactions on which eBay is based.To countenance fair transactions eBay provides an efficient feedback system to allow buyers and sellers to benefit from collective experience, full-grown customers a strong social incentive to honor each transaction. Integration Through its acquisition of PayPal eBay gained not only market share, but also vertical integration key to its long-run success. By include the payment method most normally used on its site rather than forcing an unpopular one on its user base, eBay has not only retained the existent PayPal user base but grow to those consumers previously unsure of which method to use.In 2003 there were 40 million PayPal accounts nearly twice as many as the previous yearand these customers transferred $12 billion across 38 countries. Diversification In addition to normal auction bidding, eBay now offers a Buy-it-Now option. Sellers set fixed maximum prices at which the auction will close before it begins. This attracts auction-wary consumers from other e-commerce sites outside of the strict auction market and effectively competes with amazon. com and froogle. com for fixed-price transactions.By allowing independent sellers to maintain store fronts online, eBay seeks to extend its position to include an even wider range of transactions, thusly not only broadening its appeal but securing ties to more conservative consumer bases. The upcoming of eBay Industry Trends What originally began as a small industry of auctions for collectibles has mushroomed into a colossus encompassing individual sellers, small businesses, and large retailers. The e-commerce industry is constantly growing, and many businesses rely on the reputation of eBay or one of their competitors to sell their products.As the market grows, a wider demographic range of consumers will be purchasing an increasing number of products online. For example, teenagers are the target consumers of very recent products such as cell phone ring tones and games, many of which are available alone online. As such varied consumer groups are emerging in the online market, there is more room for differentiation perhaps some niches are being created. Therefore, the barriers to insertion will decrease as the market expands. Competitive Trends eBay has a solid foothold as the canonical online auction site.They have a niche as an enormous community with an extremely high success rate of matching buyers and sellers. eBay is distinguished by its accessibility of single, used, and/or rare items, and for its floating prices. They are adequately differentiated from their competitors, and they possess or so 70% of the online auction market share. However, due to the relatively low switching costs and entry barriers inherent in a web market, eBay must continue to be rather defensive of their position, against current rival and potential new entrants. Current CompetitorsAmazon and Yahoo Auctions are the main competitors of eBay. Ubid. com has 14% of the market share, but they have a different niche than eBay by dispute to business-to-consumer transaction. Amazon may pose a threat to eBays utter potency they are consistently bringing retailers into e-commerc e. However, this comes with a great burden. Whereas eBay has virtually no overhead, Amazon necessarily to store and move huge quantities of inventory. Currently, Amazons revenues are comfortably greater than eBays (about twice as much), but their costs are so high that eBays annual profits are roughly ten propagation Amazons.Alternatively, Amazon might call for to expand its auction operations, trying to incite eBay from its niche. Amazon would have to establish a network, a community, on the scale of eBays in order to challenge them directly. Although this could be time consuming and costly to implement, instruction on transactions in which they are merely the broker and bear no cost could greatly increase their long-term profits. Yahoo poses little threat to eBay. piece they theoretically have potential for growth similar to Amazon, they lack Amazons reputation.They also lack the cost-free transactions in which eBay luxuriates. New Entrants Online auctioning doesnt have hi gh costs of entry, especially the way eBay operates All a new entrant needs is merchant software there is no need for warehouses or expensive machinery. However, many companies have tried to enter this lucrative market and have failed. New entry is difficult because eBay has an enormous community, which gives tremendous network value to both buyers and sellers. Any entrant would have to build up a network from scratch. Conceivably, if a new company entered a niche market, e. g. uctions of teenage attire and cell phone accessories, they could survive, but such a market would likely be too small to gain any measurable market share. Alternately, a website that already has a large community would be able to enter more easily. For example, Craigs List has a network of millions of users, who rely on it for matching them up with people who can fulfill their specific needs. It would be simple enough to add an auction section to the site, and take advantage of this actual network to compet e with eBay. Froogle, a new service from Google, may forever change the way online shopping is done.While it presently is a beta version, it looks to be a promising engine for online shoppers to quickly search nearly all online stores for the products they desire. While Froogle isnt an entrant to the online auction market (yet), it is sure as shooting the beginning of a powerful new substitute service. Froogle may be very dangerous to eBay for many reasons. Google already has a huge network of search-users and advertisers. If vendors (especially specialized vendors, as many on eBay are) can set up their own online stores and be found for free on Froogle, they have less of a reason to pay eBay for its high access. Bay certainly still has a lot going for it, (security and reputation) but may soon find its network challenged by Froogle users. eBays Response eBay recently started Business. eBay, a new business-to-business online auction that spans all sectors, from dig to farming. eB ay is aware that they may need to take larger retailers in order to grow, and to challenge Amazons growth in this direction. If Amazon decides to challenge eBays community appeal, then eBay must block this attempt any way they can. A simple method would be to start a price war. Bays costs are so negligible compared to Amazons that Amazon could not peradventure survive a price war. EBay could almost give away auctions to sellers, whereas this sort of emulation would bankrupt Amazon. If a new entrant emerges, eBays best bet is to rely on the value of their community. Even a company trying to enter into a niche market would have a difficult time building a network large enough to attract eBay customers. In the rare case of an open community site entering into online auctioning, eBay should worry in a price war if they believe this sites community is comparable to theirs. Bay is famous for their extreme efficiency, and any entrant would likely be somewhat inefficient due to their i nexperience. eBays best response to Froogle is to assert their security and reputation to their users If you buy from eBay, you know you will have a safe and fraud-free transaction, especially if you pay with PayPal. On the other hand, if person buys from an online shop found on Froogle, he has no idea how reliable the vendor is, or if his credit card information will be safe.If buyers are disinclined to engage in potentially dangerous transactions outside of eBay, buyers and sellers alike will continue to complete their transactions through eBay. Summary eBay virtually monopolizes the online auction market, due to their large network value, extremely low costs, reputation for security, and efficient operations. When confronted with competition, eBay either relies on its community niche, or buys out the competition (i. e. Half. com and PayPal). They have created a market where entry is very difficult, and competitors are relatively powerless, particularly given the threat of a pr ice war.These advantages should ensure eBays continued supremacy of online auctions in the future. However, they should court larger retailers, as Amazon has, to expedite their growth. eBay is likely to get the leading online auctioneer for quite some time, as long as they dwell adaptable to the ever-dynamic online market. eBay has proven to be a successful chameleon in the past, making lucrative acquisitions and modifying its business model, depending on the state of the online market. As long as eBay continues to precipitously maintain its community and reputation of security, it will dominate the online auction market.References 1. Crockett, Roger O. No elastic? No Problem. BusinessWeek online. . October 23, 2000. 2. eBay 2003 Annual Report. . 3. Hof, Rob. Meet eBays Auctioneer-in-Chief. BusinessWeek online. . May 29, 2003. 4. Hof, Robert D. The eBay Economy. BusinessWeek online. . August 25, 2005. 5. Lewis, Marilyn. eBay and Amazon. webservicespipeline. . December 22 , 2004. 6. Perez, Juan Carlos. Online auction providers grapple with fraud. Computerworld. . Februrary 17, 2005. 7. Roberts, Paul. Microsoft, eBay, Visa form Phish Report Network. Computerworld. . February 14, 2005