Do you grow by acquiring other businesses, or by making your own company stronger? For TWay, the latter is the obvious choice.
Tampa, FL (PRWEB) October 10, 2005 -- TWay.com founder Dean Burnetti had a clear vision of the online auction site that he wanted to build – a simple, easy-to-use website, with an inexpensive rate structure and no listing fees at all.
Now, with industry giant eBay spending billions of dollars on expansions and acquisitions since the first of the year, the obvious question for Burnetti is this: Do you believe that your simple vision for TWay is still the right strategy?
“Absolutely,” Burnetti says. “More than ever. EBay’s customers are the ones who are going to have to pick up the tab for eBay’s buying spree. And we’ll see how they react to eBay’s spending over the coming months.”
EBay recently capped off a year-long shopping trip by buying internet phone service provider Skype, a deal that could cost eBay as much as $4.1 billion. Before that purchase, eBay had bought a series of other companies, spending about $3.5 billion on them since the first of the year.
Analysts are unsure about how all that eBay spending will shake out. But several business professors at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania were less than impressed with eBay’s strategy.
"I understand it from the Skype perspective," marketing professor Xavier Dreze said in an article about the purchase posted on Wharton’s website. "Skype gets money and more visibility. It's less clear for eBay."
Another Wharton professor, Gerald Faulhaber, who teaches business and public policy, was even more skeptical.
"I don't understand it at all," Faulhaber said. "It would have made sense if Google had bought Skype, but I just don't see the synergy (with eBay).”
The entire article, entitled “EBay Calling Skype: Is It a Good Connection?”, can be found on the Wharton website at http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/
Burnetti is equally skeptical about eBay’s buying-spree strategy.
“Ultimately, you have to determine whether all that expensive expansion will translate into better service for the average eBay customer,” Burnetti said. “Right now, if you do a Google search for the words ‘eBay sucks’, you get 23,500 responses. That indicates a fair amount of unhappiness. But it also indicates there is a big opportunity for smaller auction sites such as TWay – online auction sites committed to service rather than to global growth.”
About TWay.com:
TWay.com moves online buying and selling to the next level with unparalleled flexibility, options and service. It also offers marketing partnership opportunities to savvy entrepreneurs. To learn more, visit the website at www.TWay.com.
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