A 7 page paper that describes the Internet auction industry, including a SWOT and key success factors. The ratings of Dell's, Amazon's and eBay are included. An emphasis is placed on eBay, including recommendations for the company to maintain their dominance in this industry. 1 table is included. Bibliography lists 8 sources.
Name of Research Paper File: MM12_PGnetauc.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
INTERNET AUCTION INDUSTRY , November, 2001 properly! According to data collected by Nielsen//NetRatings and Harris
Interactive eCommercePulse, Americans spent $556 million at Internet auction sites in May 2001. That was a 149 percent increase over the $223 million spend in May 2000. In terms of
total e-commerce spending, the auctions accounted for 10 percent of the total in May 2001 compared to 8 percent of the total in May 2000 (Information Superhighways Newsletter, 2001).
In that same month, more than 6.2 million Americans made purchases at Online auction sites. The total number of purchasers in May 2000 was 5.1 million (Information Superhighways Newsletter, 2001).
The Internet auction industry is strong and profitable - to some auction companies. Goldsborough commented: "Auctions on the Internet may be the purest form of capitalism practiced today, with buyers
and sellers coming together in a central worldwide marketplace, unencumbered by intermediaries and, to a large extent, outside regulation. It encompasses individuals selling to individuals, business selling to individuals, and
businesses selling to other businesses" (2000, p. 24). The three most popular Internet auction sites are eBay, which moves about $12 million worth of merchandise on the average each
day; Yahoo! Auction which moves about $500,000 and Amazon.com auction, which moves about $200,000 per day (Goldsborough, 2000). The business-to-business auction market moves even more. FreeMarkets and Fair-Market are
the two biggies. Forrester Research forecast that businesses who use dynamic pricing were forecast to generate $29 billion in sales in 2000 and $60 billion in sales in 2001.
The most popular items on the general auction sites has historically been collectibles. There seems to be a trend towards general merchandise taking a dominant role in this niche. Things