Improving
eBay’s Position among Fashion Oriented Shoppers
Founded in 1995, eBay Inc. connects
hundreds of millions of people around the world every day, empowering them to
explore new opportunities and innovate together. eBay Inc. does this by
providing the Internet platforms of choice for global commerce, payments and
communications. Since its inception, eBay Inc. has expanded to include some of
the strongest brands in the world, including eBay, PayPal, Skype, Shopping.com,
and others. eBay Inc. is headquartered in
eBay is a
leader in internet sales in the Clothes, Shoes and Accessories (CSA)
category. A recent survey has identified
two segments that are important to eBay’s continuing success in this category.
The first group, Fashion Fanatics, spend much more than other groups on CSA and
care deeply about well-known brands and current fashions. The second group, the
Brand Bargain Enthusiasts, particularly value the exciting shopping experience
on eBay and use it to find bargains and unique items. The question for the
practicum is to define ways to make eBay even more successful with these
segments. In particular, the Practicum would answer the following questions:
- What features could be added to the eBay site that
would enhance their shopping experience?
·
How
can eBay improve its onsite merchandising to these segments?
o
How
could the offerings be organized to encourage matching of items or
accessorizing?
o
Should
bidding on or buying one CSA item generate links to complementary ones?
- How can eBay develop synergies with social media
such as Facebook to help merchandise CSA inventory?
To answer
these questions the Duke Practicum team would:
- Analyze the eBay segmentation study that identifies
the Fashion Fanatics and the Brand Bargain Enthusiasts
- Evaluate eBay’s current competitive position for
these two segments
- Define successful competitive strategies for these
segments both on the web and in stores
- Conduct focus groups of people clearly identified as
being part of these segments
- Develop a coherent strategy to create the optimal
merchandising strategy in these segments