Having had the week from hell! This will be swiftly followed by a weekend full of R and R, one can o...
Having had the week from hell! This will be swiftly followed by a weekend full of R and R, one can only hope!!
Member since:07.02.2003
Reviews:22
Members who trust:19
Ebay is an interesting concept which really works. It is an online flea market, which you can buy and sell anything from shoes, pottery to cars and houses!- and even that speical designer item, you are only limited by what people will sell!!
Ebay was founded when dot com fever was at it's height within the economy. A couple of years later many dot com's failed, but Ebay has been one of the few that has been extremely successful in recent years. It is a winning concept and encapsulates the well known saying that one mans trash is another mans treasure! Ebay's profits for the last quarter were £54m. Which is an amazing achievement for a company based on such a basic format- it brings the world market to the intended users fingertips!
Ebay is of particular interest to me as my wife (who has dual UK/US nationality) went to Harvard with Meg Whitman who is the CE of Ebay. (If you are interested they both graduated with MBA’s) To this day my wife and Meg are still in contact. Meg has an amazing passion for the company and saw it's potential to be massive. She is extremely experienced and her ideals are firmly set in the ruthless and challenging world of real businesses, having previously held a senior position at Hasbro. She is forever quoting fascinating facts and figures at me such as over a billion items have been sold on ebay. This is astonishing ebays forecast profits for 2003 are £1.2bn. We both have meg to thank for asking us to invest in ebay as we have made large gains from the share price (floatation price 18US now around 90US)
As a company director myself I consider ebay to be a perfect model of a business. The company holds no stock has no delivery costs and has an excellent cash flow record, as the company has little need for capital expenditure. Instead of being a traditional business it acts as an agent between buyers and sellers to meet and do business with each other on a global scale. It makes its profits from taking what is known as a listing fee from each seller, allowing them to list their items for auction.
In basic terms anyone, anyone can register themselves and there item on ebay for a small fee. Adding a description and perhaps picture of the item. The item is then placed in an auction and a bidding war begins! The item is sold to the highest bidder on closure of the auction.
This is a great sight for collectors, people looking for a bargain, or someone looking for a specific and perhaps rare item. With such a large market most tastes and trends of consumer needs can be catered for.
One of my most recent purchases was a rare Louis Vuitton, large trunk in monogram made around the 1930's, it was in mint condition and there were allot of people interested including I suspect dealers. I submitted a number of bids, which was both exciting and easy to do and eventually won the auction paying around £3,000 for the trunk. I paid around £75 insurance and delivery costs and the item arrived 2 weeks later. Since then it has been on the move again- it makes a perfect coffee table (I had a glass top fitted) in the drawing room of our villa in Tuscany. A couple of weeks ago I had it valued at £6,000!! To summarise this was a great buy from a very easy to use and functional site. To new comers the information can be a bit daunting at first but the comprehensive help guide is very useful and also easy to use.
Ebay also operates a payment system called pay pal, which makes it easy for the buyer to pay the seller. You simply register a credit or debit card and email the money to the seller!
Meg often reminds me that on paper her 2.3% (tiny!)stake in Ebay is worth around 640 million US, although she is a very modest woman really- that is a true measure of a great concept and great leadership.
As I have said before ebay is a fantastic concept and a shining business example. Whether you are just clearing out your junk or want to find that rare item it's the place to trade!
May 3rd, 2003
(May 7th, 2003)
very helpful by (100%):
