Joe's Blog

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/business/12giants.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=ecommerce&st=cse

For chapter 5 I found an article in the New York Times from 10/2008 titled Amid the Gloom, an E-Commerece War.


It talks about how eBay and Amazon, giants in e-commerce, are both susceptible to market slowdowns and follow the economy just like brick and mortar stores. While e-commerce was once considered immune to downturns reality has proved the experts wrong one more time. eBay was forced to layoff 1600 employees in October due to the market downturn.

The article went on to say E-commerce can have its down side also. It seems some at e-bay would like to change radically. Over time people don’t want to waist time waiting on an auction when minimum prices are really set. Perhaps Amazon has the better approach. E-Bay has been quoted as saying it would like to just tear down the whole store and build a new one but they can’t.

In a nutshell with the quickly changing nature or e-commerce no one is safe and you need to be ready for rapid change even if it goes against what made you great in the first place.