Alibaba Assign
Why eBay failed in China
The main reason eBay failed in China was because eBay failed to recognize that the Chinese market and the business environment are very different from that of the West.
EBay sent a German manager to lead the China operation and brought in a chief technology officer from the United States. Neither one spoke Chinese or understood the local market. It was eBay’s biggest mistake.
Second, because the top management team didn’t understand the local market, they spent a lot of money doing the wrong things, such as advertising on the Internet in a country where small businesses didn’t use the Internet. The fact that eBay had a strong brand in the United States didn’t mean it would be a strong brand in China.
Third, rather than adapt products and services to local customers, eBay stuck to its “global platform,” which again did not fit local customers’ tastes and preferences.
"eBay failed to recognize that the Chinese market and the business environment are very different from that of the West. Not only eBay most US Markets fail in China , when they get to China, they try to do what they did in the US, and quickly discover that the rules in China are very different. tech brands such as eBay, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Yahoo have done very poorly against their Chinese counterparts. While some of this can certainly be blamed on government favoritism, it is not the only reason. Consensus appears to be that these brands just did not understand the Chinese consumer.
Chinese culture is very different than, than American’s in this case. The, consumer’s expectations and needs are different too. While eBay didn’t want or think to adapt its strategy, Alibaba perfectly adapted to the local culture. By looking at the Tobago website you can tell that, it is a Chinese platform.
To compete with eBay, Jack Ma (Alibaba’s founder) has given a strong local identity to Taobao(website). First, every member of the administration team had to choose a nickname,
The main reason eBay failed in China was because eBay failed to recognize that the Chinese market and the business environment are very different from that of the West.
EBay sent a German manager to lead the China operation and brought in a chief technology officer from the United States. Neither one spoke Chinese or understood the local market. It was eBay’s biggest mistake.
Second, because the top management team didn’t understand the local market, they spent a lot of money doing the wrong things, such as advertising on the Internet in a country where small businesses didn’t use the Internet. The fact that eBay had a strong brand in the United States didn’t mean it would be a strong brand in China.
Third, rather than adapt products and services to local customers, eBay stuck to its “global platform,” which again did not fit local customers’ tastes and preferences.
"eBay failed to recognize that the Chinese market and the business environment are very different from that of the West. Not only eBay most US Markets fail in China , when they get to China, they try to do what they did in the US, and quickly discover that the rules in China are very different. tech brands such as eBay, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Yahoo have done very poorly against their Chinese counterparts. While some of this can certainly be blamed on government favoritism, it is not the only reason. Consensus appears to be that these brands just did not understand the Chinese consumer.
Chinese culture is very different than, than American’s in this case. The, consumer’s expectations and needs are different too. While eBay didn’t want or think to adapt its strategy, Alibaba perfectly adapted to the local culture. By looking at the Tobago website you can tell that, it is a Chinese platform.
To compete with eBay, Jack Ma (Alibaba’s founder) has given a strong local identity to Taobao(website). First, every member of the administration team had to choose a nickname,