Case Study - eBay

In 2012, online auctioneer eBay was in deep trouble. It had lost market share to Amazon and others. Its stock price was down 80% over a two-year period. Searching for reasons why eBay’s CEO did something that seemed ridiculous. He looked at the company’s recent acquisitions and selected the craziest CEO among them. Then he told that CEO to form a team, go off site as far away as possible for several weeks, and come up with a strategy. “When you come back,” he said, ”we’ll implement it.” 

The team did it. They went to Australia for three weeks, looked at a lot of data, came back, and made one change: they turned the eBay homepage from a search box into a deal-finder page. They then created a Dashboard that internally tracked data from the new page. The Dashboard provided real-time data about how users were interacting with the site, allowing eBay to immediately optimize its offerings per user.

The result was astounding. Combined with some of the CEO’s other efforts, this initiative helped increase eBay’s market cap by $50 billion—the result of learning from data as opposed to staying tied to the process-driven status quo. This success story underscores the power of data-driven decision-making and the value of embracing innovative strategies in the face of stiff competition. It’s a testament to eBay’s adaptability and willingness to learn, adapt, and evolve—a crucial trait for any organization aspiring to maintain a competitive edge in the fast-paced world of e-commerce.