Lecturer: Welcome everybody to today’s seminar. If I remember correctly, David, you’ll be leading the seminar
讲师:欢迎大家来到今天的研讨会。 如果我没记错的话,大卫,这个研讨会是你领导的。

David: Yes, that’s right ...
大卫: 是的,没错。

Presenter: Fine and how about questions – shall we keep these to the end or would you like people to interrupt during your presentation?
主持人: 好的,那关于提问,我们是到最后才问问题还是在讲解的过程中就可以打断提问题呢?

David: Thanks, ehm , if anyone has a question just ask straight away ..
大卫: 谢谢,我想如果谁有问题就直接问好了。

Lecturer: Fine, let’s go then ..
讲师: 好了,那我们开始了。

David: Right, ehm ..... eBay is an enormously successful company, it’s a household word in several countries, in 2005 it had a turnover of $4.55 billion and it employed 11,600 people – it’s achieved all of this in just 11 years. What’s the secret of eBay’s success? I think the key issue here is that eBay couldn’t exist without the Internet – you know there aren’t many examples of companies like this – take Amazon, for example if you don’t feel like switching your computer on you can always go round to the nearest book shop. But if you want to sell your old magazines to somebody in Germany eBay’s the only way to do it. Without the Net’s ability to bring buyers and sellers together from different locations there would be no eBay. So this is big point number one. Now, let’s move on to point two, the founders of eBay – Meg Whitman, the CEO , like all of the senior staff already had a successful business background – she brought in an experienced management team.
大卫: 是的……易趣是一个相当成功的公司,它的名字在很多国家都是家喻户晓的。在2005年,易趣达到了4,550,000,000美元的收益,在短短的十一年里就拥有11,600名员工。那易趣的成功秘诀是什么呢?我认为关键是互联网成就了易趣。你知道吗,没有多少公司是这样子的。以亚马逊为例,就算你不想开电脑,你也可以去最近的书店;但是如果你想出售你的旧杂志给德国的顾客,易趣是你唯一的选择。网络能把不同地方买家和卖家联系在一起,如果没有它,就没有易趣。所以这就是第一个重点。现在,让我们继续第二个要点。梅格•惠特曼是易趣的创办人,也是首席执行官。像所有高级职员一样,他有很成功的商业工作背景,并且引进了一个经验丰富的管理团队。


They had a great idea but it had to be a great profitable idea – around this – the importance of profitability they built their business model. Let’s move on to point three, sound business management – did you hear of eBay during the dotcom boom years? Not a lot – they were busy building their customer base and making money, they didn’t feature in stories headlining the excesses of the dotcom boom years ... Actually I’ll add another point, point four, eBay doesn’t produce, sell or ship anything itself, it provides the online marketplace for other people to do this – this gives it enormous financial power ....
他们有很好的想法,但必须是好的,并且能获利的。根据获利的重要性这一点,他们建立了自己的经营模式。接下来我们进入下一个要点----完善的企业管理。在互联网繁华时期,你有听说过易趣吗?估计不是很多吧。他们当时忙于建立客户群和赚钱,他们并没有在这个互联网繁华时期过多地展现自己。在这里,我增加要点四:易趣本身并没有生产,销售或者推出任何产品,只是提供一个在线市场供其他人做此类交易,正因为这样,使得易趣拥有巨大的财政力量。


Student: David, can I ask a question?
学生:大卫,我可以问一个问题吗?

David: Sure ...
大卫:当然。

Student: What difference does that make – the point about eBay not making anything itself ..
学生:易趣本身没有进行任何产品交易,这个有什么具体的意义吗?

David: Well, this means that they can use their capital very effectively – you know their capital isn’t tied up in buildings, factories, warehouses that sort of thing, again their capital isn’t tied up in things that are waiting to be sold, they haven’t got shops all over the world with sales assistants in them – all this costs – see what I mean ...

大卫:这种做法能够使他们有效地使用资金。你要知道,他们的资金并不会搁死在建筑,工厂,仓库这些东西上,再之,也不会在待售的东西上。他们也没有需要销售助理的实体店。所有的这些费用——你明白我所说的吧。

Student: Sure, I get it now ..

学生:当然,明白了。


David: Great, now .... The only problem they’ve run into, actually that’s not true they’ve had a couple of major problems – anyway the first problem – they arrived in a couple of key markets too late – this happened in Japan and Hong Kong where Yahoo’s online marketplace had a head start. The other problem – well it’s the sort of thing we’ve all heard about – buyers receiving stolen goods or a product different from the one they thought they’d bought or no product at all, sellers putting in false bids to increase the price just before an auction finishes. eBay admits this happens but says that this sort of thing accounts for a very small percentage of all sales. OK , now I’d like to have a look at just how the company has expanded over the last 11 years ...
大卫:很好。传闻易趣面临几个重要问题并不是真的,它面临的唯一问题,不管怎样,第一个问题是有几个重要市场他们进入得太晚,比如说雅虎在线市场领先起步的日本和香港。另一个问题是我们之前听说过的:买家收到赃物或者不同于之前想买到的产品,又或者根本就没收到任何产品,而卖家在拍卖结束前,错误提高出价进行投标。易趣承认这件事并且解释这种错误只是销售中的一小部分。好的,现在我们看看这个公司在过去的十一年里是怎样扩张的。