Ebay fun and credit management

In the evening, I read the latest economic report for the 21st Century (Issue 600th). I tried to see some interesting things about the birth of eBay in Xu zhirong's "online transaction, try" sit-in, the transcript is as follows:

A widely-spread version of eBay was launched in 1995, where omida worked in Silicon Valley, his girlfriend huasley, a Pez sugar box enthusiast, complained that he couldn't find anyone in San Jose who could exchange sugar boxes with her after he moved from Boston to stay with him. As a result, omida built a website that allows anyone to sell anything at a bid auction, to cheer his girlfriend up. From the book <future store>, we learned that this is just a propaganda trick of eBay. The real version is far from so romantic: a video game company named 3do is planning to go public, and omida is optimistic about the company, but has no chance to buy the company's shares at the IPO price. This made him feel unfair, so he built an online auction site like eBay.

In the beginning, omida did not expect to make money on eBay. However, half a year later, as eBay's traffic grew larger, omida's network service provider best decided eBay was a commercial website and decided to charge a monthly fee of up to $ February 1996 from 250. Omida explained to best that the services he provided to users were free of charge. However, best always charges fees. Omida had no choice but to declare a tax on sellers on its website. By the end of February, he had received a pile of envelopes containing check, paper money, and coins stuck on cards with transparent tape, totaling more than $250 from best. That is to say, from the first month, eBay began to make profits. In February May, I received more than $5000. omida hired a part-time employee to take the money out of the envelope and store it in the bank. In February June, over $10 thousand in revenue, omida realized that it was necessary to take the website he created seriously-he quit his job. By the end of 1997, omida tried to persuade withmann to become CEO of eBay. "What is the gross profit margin of your company? "Omida's answer is:" What is gross profit rate? "

In fact, eBay's gross margin is 85%! C2C websites such as eBay only need to build a big house in the virtual cyberspace, and then rent numerous stalls in the House to small vendors. Small vendors make a business, and eBay receives a commission. In contrast, a B2C website like Amazon is much more troublesome. It is like Walmart, which puts all kinds of goods in the warehouse and then sells them. The risk and management costs are greatly increased. Interestingly, Amazon was still planning to buy eBay, but the business logic of the two websites is quite different. When she ran to Seattle to meet Amazon's CEO Bezos, she returned to the company and said, "They have their own luxury warehouses and inventories. I'm glad we don't have to deal with those things. "

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In fact, this article is not about network myth, but about the credit management of online transactions. The author's suggestion is to use the Yunus method. I personally think that although the idea is good, it is not easy to implement the virtual identity of the network.

The solution for Ebay is to build a public forum so that buyers and sellers can rate each other. If there are disputes, you can resolve them on your own in the Forum. With regard to counterfeit goods, eBay has launched a Microsoft program that allows rights holders such as Rolex and LV to search for fake goods on eBay and report to the website. Ebay insists that it is incapable and has no obligation to identify the authenticity of the goods sold on its website. The rights holder is obligated to act only after reporting.

These two methods allow ebay to get rid of the trouble of user disputes and seller litigation, but there is another unsolved problem: since the buyer and seller score each other, no one is willing to do business with a newbie who has no credibility record. Do not do business, where do credit points come from? Therefore, it is very difficult for new users to become sellers on eBay. According to eBay's own statistics, only 5% of users have been sellers.

Yunus has established the Grameen Bank to provide small unsecured loans to extremely poor farmers in Bangladesh. Because no collateral is required, he asked the farmers to join a five-person group first, And every six such groups form a center. If a farmer wants to get a loan, he must submit his idea to the Group for discussion. After the group is approved, he must submit the idea to the center for discussion. Everyone thinks that his ideas are more reliable, and he can get a loan only if he has a good profit prospect. It is an individual's obligation to repay the loan. However, if the loan in the group fails to be repaid, the overall loan quota of the Group will be affected in the future. It is not hard to see that this is actually a gentle sit system.

On the Internet, if users are first required to organize themselves into a tribe, members of the tribe can guarantee each other and share the credibility records of the tribe. Is it a way to effectively solve the problem of user integrity? According to common sense, in the face of acquaintances, a person is always not very good at evil. At present, ** the network has provided such a tribal form, but there are no mandatory provisions for Members to guarantee each other and share credibility records, so the effect is not obvious yet.

Note:BlueThe font is a reference.