CASE: eBay GLOBALIZATION STRATEGYFebruary 21, 2001From: Amal MBA Student, Spring 2006To: Matt BannickSenior Vice President, International eBayIn response to your request for an outside perspective on how to manage your growth in Latin America, The following report presents my analysis and recommendations on your potential growth in the area and how to manage IBazar's Brazilian division. I hope my report justifies my recommendations. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY After receiving your email asking me to provide advice on IBazar's Brazilian operation and your upcoming expansion into Latin America, I spent all week analyzing eBay's current situation, as well as the e-commerce market. commerce in Latin America, to find the right solution that guarantees immediate success for your company in the region. First, I will start with a systematic analysis of eBay's international market entry strategies. Secondly, I will analyze the e-commerce market in Latin America. Finally, I will use the above analysis to provide you with a series of recommendations regarding potential expansion into Brazil, as well as your expansion across Latin America as a whole. eBay's INTERNATIONAL MARKET ENTRY STRATEGIES Bay's aggressive desire to expand globally goes back to one of eBay's very first goals: to create a global trading platform that made it as easy as possible for anyone, anywhere, to trade virtually anything. After initial successes in the United States, eBay began exploring the possibilities of offering the service internationally. eBay used all three different options available to look at a new market. One of these is clearly to start a site from scratch. This is essentially what was done in France and Italy. Another option is to simply buy existing companies, and that's what eBay Germany did. The third option is to form a partnership. This is what he did in Australia and Japan. But the prevailing strategy adopted by eBay in general is to gain critical mass in global markets so as to have a foothold to bring buyers and sellers together. The ability to localize a global company is one of the biggest challenges. When you have a business model that works at home, the challenge is to discover what is critical to success and then look for ways to localize. This is why eBay increasingly buys a local player to enter a market.