Question

Topic: Online Shopping

In 1000 words evaluate, analyze and then compare and contrast the following issues for Amazon and eBay’s service marketing:

1. What service was done well by each of the service provider? Elaborate and point out several specific examples.
2. For each service provider, what aspects of this services had a positive influence on your perceptions of the overall service experience? And similarly, what aspects of this service experience had a negative influence on your perceptions of the overall service experience? Explain your answer in detail.
3. Which of the following characteristics (color, lighting, shapes, sound) in each of the service providers physical/visual evidence influenced your customer experience?
4. What other aspects of the physical/visual evidence were present?
5. How did each providers use their physical/visual evidence as a differentiator? To enhance the customer’s experience? To facilitate service delivery?
6. What recommendations would you make to improve the customer service experience? Please provide one for each service provider.

Answer 1

1. The service done well by eBay is that it provides a simplified listing procedure of products. It gives the option to its sellers to open an eBay store based on monthly subscription fee. It offers sellers Valet service for additional charges as support to sell their products.  It gives the branding opportunity to its sellers to include their logos, company information and contact details, customize their selling pages to distinguish from other buyers. It has international shipping facility for its sellers and do not have any different procedural requirements for selling internationally as the eBay global shipping programs handle the shipping and logistics processes and the seller is advised a total cost. Thus, sellers have more opportunity to promote their business through eBay.

Amazon has advantages for customers like it has standard procedures as per category and handles the shipping through Amazon fulfilment locations. It has standard shipping fee for categories like books, movies and DVDs and have payment procedures to sellers better compared to eBay. Amazon's customer services are better planned and trained to handle the customer issues and problems. Amazon platform has better technique and software technology for showing products in a organised manner through algorithms which are highly effective. It has marketing and branding programs which highlight the sponsored products on the top of search results. The sales potential on Amazon is more than eBay as eBay has seller limit programs based on their performance and feedback from customers while Amazon has penalties for poor service for sellers but it does not imposes any limits and let the sellers manage information and assess reviews related to the sales of their products.

2. For eBay, the positive influence on the perceptions of overall service experience is the eBay store for certain brands which can allow to buy from chosen brands and sellers and have asses to information of sellers as sellers themselves pack and ship with details of their manufacturing and contact information. It provides Valet services which can help clarify about product and services before buying. The global shipping programs are also a positive influence of overall service experience as it has international marketplaces and sellers can sell their products across the globe

For Amazon, the positive factors are the secure payment processes, easy search and buying experience, strong customer service support, well developed software and algorithms which help in organised search and buying comparing different options and standardisation of product listing making it easier to compare and evaluate product and navigate the website for buying across various products and categories.

3. The negative influence on the perceptions of overall service experience about eBay is that the search related information about products do not give accurate products, it does not support the shipment support other than the Global shipping programs. Also, the payment is done through PayPal which is complex compared to the direct account transfer of money by Amazon. The negative influence about Amazon is that it does not shares the seller contact information and has a standard process followed for its packaging and shipping procedures.

4. The characteristics like color, webpage design and shapes influence the visual aspects of the customer experience. While Amazon has a webpage full of exciting offers and product range creating opportunities to buy more product and create more interest, eBay has a simplified arrangement of categories and items on its website and the customer needs to serach for products, offers and any bargains.