This is a marketing for EBay "Expanding to China" problem.

1. MARKETING PLAN FOR EBAY
A. Marketing strategy (4Ps)
 PRODUCT
The major product of eBay is their official website, therefore, improving and developing it in order
to be customers-friendly is the essential thing that eBay must implement at this time. Since eBay
has a plan to concentrate on the exchange between China domestic companies and international
customers, and vice versa, EBay should create a website with 2 main languages, English and
Chinese and other customers and supplier around the world may use their own ID in their countries
to sign into the website.
About the design and the outline of the website, eBay should survey the tastes and buying habits
on online shopping of Chinese such as: the color chines like the most, the celebrities they like the
most… in order to change or create interface to accordance with the Chinese customers because
they have different characteristics compared to other countries. In addition, China is the world’s
largest smart phone market and the number of active smart phone user in China exceeded 700
million by the end of 2013, say a new report analytics firm Umeng,1 (Shu, 2014) thank to the huge
advantage, eBay should develop an online shopping application which integrated in phone
operating system. It can make customers order from anywhere and anytime with their phone.
In their previous market, everyone- every kind of company and individuals can upload their
products into eBay website, it caused a major obstacle for buyers, they did not know about the
quality of the product because eBay did not censor the products before it were delivered- the
supplier delivered directly to their buyers. It made the sales and transactions on eBay decreased
because customer worried about the products which were sold on eBay is not safe and they would
think carefully before decide to buy on eBay. Draw lesson from the failures, eBay should have an
innovated system that test the quality of products and the suppliers before allow them to post it on
eBay, especially customers on other countries cannot know and check the quality by themselves
so this system may help them. It also helps eBay increased their reputation and customer services.
1 Shu, C. (2014, March 13). News. Retrieved from Tech Crunch_The latest technology news and information on
startups: http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/13/china-now-has-700m-active-smartphone-users-says-umeng/

2.  PRICE
The money that eBay makes through PayPal comes from transaction fees between sellers and
people who use it to transfer money. Here is how those fees break down.
 Sellers: For the most part, PayPal takes a 2.9% transaction fee on the total
sale amount, plus a $0.30 fee per transaction. Fees can go as low as 2.2%
for discounted rates, or as high as 3.9% on international sales. When using
a PayPal Here card, the company takes 2.7% for every swipe, or 3.5%, plus
$0.15, for every time a card number is typed in.
 Transfer fees: while sending money inside the United States is free from a
person's PayPal balance or bank account, there is a fee of 2.9%, plus $0.30,
per transaction for sending from a debit or credit card. When sending money
outside of the United States, the fees range from 0.5% to 2%, depending on
the destination, when they are funded with a bank account or PayPal
balance. There is a 3.4% to 3.9% fee for users who pay with a credit or debit
card.2 (Loeb, 2014)
In addition, the companies which has more than 3 year contract with eBay may be discounted 15%
advertising fees in both TV and newspaper, the companies which has less than 3 year contract will
be free 1 times newspaper advertising per 2 months, combine with other products and other
company. All of them will be promoted on eBay official website, however eBay will charge 2%
the revenue of each company or individual if they want to eBay post the ads on eBay website and
5% per 1 other website
 PLACE
EBay biggest mistake is the top management team did not understand the local market, they spent
a lot of money doing the advertising on the Internet in a country where small business did not use
2 Loeb, S. (2014, January 18). News. Retrieved from Vatornews_ The trusted source for emerging tech:
http://vator.tv/news/2014-01-18-how-does-ebay-make-money#zzgTWmO5mgXck5t3.99

3. the Internet.3 (Wan, 2010)China is the country with most users (642 million in 2014), represents
nearly 22% of total internet Usage in the world, and has more user than the next three countries
combined (US, India and Japan). The population of China count for today is 1,393,783,836 people,
which mean 46% of the country’s population uses the Internet. However, at the top 10 countries
which have the highest Internet Usage, China is in the top three countries which have the lowest
percentage.4 (N/A, 2014)All of the data show that eBay should focus in both direct and indirect
marketing which means both offline and outline marketing
As mentioned above, nearly 50% China population uses the Internet5 (N/A, The statistics portal,
sign up for additional information), most of them come from cities, so eBay should use the Internet
to accost the major segmentation. Telemarketing, email, social systems such as Weibo, twitter…;
research engines (Baidu, Youku) are some kind of things that eBay may apply on the Internet
3 Wan, H. H. (2010, 12 9). Retrieved from Forbes Web site: http://www.forbes.com/sites/china/2010/09/12/how-ebay-
failed-in-china/
4 N/A. (2014, August 25). Trends and more/ internet users. Retrieved from Internet Live Stats:
http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/
5 N/A. (sign up for additional information). Retrieved from The statistics portal:
http://www.statista.com/statistics/276748/average-daily-tv-viewing-time-per-person-in-selected-countries/

4. Although Chinese just spent 164 minutes per day to watch TV (the data was reported on 2012)6
(Simcott, 2014), doing TVC may help eBay have the other segments who do not use the Internet,
people who live in the country sides of China. The newspaper advertising can be applied for EBay
in China.
 PROMOTION
As addressed in Place, the Internet advertising is very important, social networks are the major key
to success. China has more than 300 million people who use SNS, especially Sina Weibo – which
around 280 million active users and 500 million registered users7 (Parr, 2010). In Facebook, it has
a fan page that everyone who like someone ,some brand can like this page, Weibo also has a similar
process which the customers can follow the page when they click the “Follow” button. Create a
brand new Weibo account and make the relationship which China Celebrities through pay them to
become the spokesman of eBay. The celebrities will use the service or product on eBay and update
the status of their personal Weibo accounts-which have many fans who following the personal will
know about eBay. The way eBay post information such as the brand, the price… must check
carefully before it will be up in Weibo. Time management, which mean what is the perfect time to
post information, what time have the most active users … in order to attract many more viewers
when upload the information or status. EBay can put the promotions with the official website link
associated; it also increases the website coverage level.
99% China population uses Baidu to research information, improve research engines (SEO) are
also helping eBay expand their reputation and it sales8 (Parr, 2010). However, Baidu is completely
in Chinese , eBay have to use the tools developed the third party- Glogou Inc. developed the world
only English web interface to Baidu’s Advertising platform9 (N/A, English Article, n.d.).
6 Simcott, R. (2014, February 27). Social Media Fast Facts: China. Retrieved from SocialMediaToday:
http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/social -media-fast-facts-china
7 Parr, B. (2010, November 16). Social Media. Retrieved from Mashable: http://mashable.com/2010/11/15/baidu-robin-
li/
8 Parr, B. (2010, November 16). Social Media. Retrieved from Mashable: http://mashable.com/2010/11/15/baidu-robin-
li/
9 N/A. (n.d.). English Article. Retrieved from Wikipedia-The free encyclopedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_advertising_in_China

5. Therefore, eBay has to have a strong digital marketing first and then create some key words such
as … in order to … eBay may also buy the advertising on Baidu such as pay per click. EBay also
should buy the advertising in other popular websites such as QQ.com; Sina.com.vn; Yoku.com…
they have to write some specific articles: one to advertise for eBay, two is advertised for products
of supply companies
EBay has to have corporate to China advertising agencies such as Grey Group China, PHD… to
make TVC for EBay. TVC for the company separated to two kinds. The first one is the advertising
are made to promote eBay reputation and brand. For example, introduce to eBay company, it
history, it categories, any kind of services. The second one includes two types of contract that was
mention about with some requirements like the quantity and the quality of the product or the
companies have the products want to advertise. For the organization or individual have less than
3 years contract, eBay will make advertising by collecting all products in the same categories in
one video. Dependence on the demands or the trend of customers ate this time or the segments like
children, teenager, adults… eBay will decide with kind of category is suitable for advertising. For
instance, on the International’s Children day, eBay will public the children toys collection video
in order to attract the children and their parents. In the other hand, for the firms with have more
than 3 years contract, after checking their product they want to promote whether suitable, eBay
will help their companies to make a introduce video with in what the produce is (are), their
function, what benefits for customers if they buy the products in eBay (discount 10%, free home
delivery, transcontinental warranty, ensures the product are genius..).