Home Based Business Ideas 2010

Capturing some 80% of the market, then the leading eCommerce platform in China, injected US$180 million to purchase 100% ownership of Eachnet.com. EBay Inc, in 2002.

Which had entered the market in 2002, Taobao.com, no thanks to an upstart, this leading market share had shrunken to just 36%, within 3 years however.

EBay on its part failed to make the following observations: while some observers will be quick to point out that Taobao.com used some "below the belt" tactics,

rather than auctioning; both sellers and buyers prefer to deal with fixed prices, as such, EBay is a Business-to-Consumer) B2C platform where small businesses make their living selling low-priced products to consumers, rather. EBay (or Eachnet before that) was utilised not so much as a Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) platform where individuals auction off their used items, unlike elsewhere.

Operating income, paypal's, this in turn reduces eBay's and its payment gateway subsidiary. Rather than making online payments, most buyers prefer to pay upon receipt of products, due to banking controls in China.

EBay's competitor Taobao.com is using its "no-fee" policy to demonstrate to sellers that it sincerely wants these users to make money first before charging for the service, however. As it believes "free is not a business model", it is unwilling to waive such fees to Chinese sellers, while eBay charges standardized fees for sellers globally.

EBay had to fork out another US$40 million to get a 49% stake in the new Eachnet.com An online and wireless service provider owned by Hutchison Whampoa, the end result: eBay had to "wrap-up" its China operations by "selling" its stake in Eachnet to Tom.com.

This is lower than its 2000 IPO price of HK$ 1.78. With its share buy-back price at HK$ 1.52 per share, it has since been "privatised" (a nicer word for "delisted") from the Hong Kong Exchange in August 2007. Tom.com is not faring any better either.

Too late" now, and it's a case of "too little, eBay has since alienated its sellers (and buyers too), while leveraging its global network is a great business initiative. It even shut down some of these sites when these sellers were found to have multiple IDs, not only was the support from eBay lacking then. Many eBay sellers already had registered international eBay IDs from as early as as 2005 to service international customers, the thing is. With the former focusing a lot more on helping sellers sell to international markets, in addition to eachnet.com, eBay recently has revived ebay.com.cn.

Thanks to eBay's intervention, bo Shao isn't going to be China's Steve Jobs, no. Citing resistance from "internal politics", his offer was turned down, founder of the original Eachnet (the one that captured 80% market share in the first place) offered to make a return to take over the reins in 2006, when Bo Shao, interestingly.

Make No Assumptions

And seek to straighten out things in China, some have accurately identified some of China's flawed business practices. Many companies come to China with high hopes of capturing a slice of China's enormous market opportunities.

Here are some examples: Compared to markets in developed economies, if not strange, there are many business practices that are just different, as a developing economy that just opened up to the rest of the world 30 years ago, cultural issues aside. Transplanting what works at home isn't the right solution either, unfortunately.

Any perceived over-intervention will just make them defect and ally with other 3PL providers. The subsidiaries report to no one except to "guarantee" the parent company a certain amount of profits each year. But to no avail, a Fortune-500 3rd-Party Logistics (3PL) provider would like to standardise operations for all its China subsidiaries.

Rather than working hard at understanding customers' needs, their mainland Chinese financial planners are more concerned about making "a fast buck", insurers from Hong Kong and Taiwan are finding that unlike its financial planners back home.

A fried chicken drumstick has a higher intrinsic value compared to a piece of minced beef sandwiched between two pieces of bread, simply because the Chinese customer perceive that for the same price, the world's market leader in fast-food is a distant second compared to KFC, mcDonald's.

And are unaccustomed to getting unskilled staff delivering the same levels of service, the reason being they have largely been pampered with skilled staff back home. Singapore-owned retailers tend to have poor service for their China outlets even though their service standards back home was great.

It literally got hell in its first 10 years of inception, without local government support, unfortunately. The Singapore government thought it had the entire deal sealed when it got Beijing's support to build the Suzhou-Singapore Industrial Park (SSIP), finally.

Corporate bigotry and arrogance have got no place here. The general advice of just "Make No Assumptions", hence. This will be a never-ending list if compiled, unfortunately. I understand that many readers would like to have a list of what's in China that is different from what's available back home, at this juncture.

Future due diligence work may have to take consideration of: while the due diligence work conducted centres around the financial aspects of the local business, Come companies enter China via means of acquiring local companies, in fact.

Or if kick-backs is a common practice) if there are any expiring monopolistic licenses, Business practices (esp.

If managers are incentivised to grow the business or just "follow the rules") Corporate culture (esp.

) Even customers behave differently here too. Employees may have social norms that are quite different from those you are familiar with, and depending on where you hire, since China's average staff turnover is just 18 months. Social norms (esp.

Be Actively Involved

And delegate them full responsibilities of running their China business, chose to appoint Chinese General Managers, knowing that China is rather different from what they experienced, some international companies.

Meaning they are literally hands-off, the mistake that many of such companies make is "management by abdication". The mistake here isn't about appointing Chinese General Managers or CEOs.

It is just as unfair to assume Chinese managers are incompetent in doing their jobs. And that they will steal from the company, it would be unfair (not to mention gross bigotry) to assume that Chinese managers are dishonest.

And NOT manage from an ivory tower (desk) back home, international companies would have to be actively involved in the day-to-day operations of their Chinese business. No amount of Executive Development Programmes can adequately prepare international companies to learn how they can succeed in China, unfortunately. In the entrant's interest to learn as much about doing business in China in the shortest time possible, however, it is.

Some areas to be actively involved include:

following your sales people to visit customers and get a real feel on what are some of the sales and customer issues that your Chinese subsidiaries are facing;

Visit them and strengthen the relationship, if you merely source from Chinese factories or wholesalers. Procurement and supply chain management, following your production people around and find out what goes on in production.

But again to strengthen their relationship with you and your company, not to poke at their private matters, getting to know your key Chinese staff on a personal level.

" And this is how we do things here, many Chinese managers love to use the phrase "But this is China. It is just as important to be assertive when the need arises, while it is important to assume nothing when in China.

And at worst be using that as an excuse for something more sinister, those who use the same sentence repeatedly are at best unwilling to change for the better.

But rather use some simple questioning such as: it is important not to just jump in to your assumptions, when confronted with the "But this is China" tagline,

"; Why is it so in China, "Can you enlighten me?

" Are there any companies that tried something different and succeeded? "What if we try something different?

" "Can we just try a different approach in this case just to test the reaction?

You will know what will be the right steps to take things don't work out as expected, at worst. You can remain silent but be keen in your observations, even when you are unsure what is the best course of action for your China operations.

Be Continuously Improving

Although it's going to be a much bumpier ride, the same applies to achieving business success in China. So they say, success is a journey and not a destination.

It has lost vast opportunities to capture potentially the world's biggest and fastest growing eCommerce market, due to its unwillingness to face its own mistakes, unfortunately for eBay. Capitaland, especially through its property subsidiary, and are making tons of profits, they have since learnt their lessons well, in the case of the Singapore government's venture in China.

And learn from early mistakes quick, the key is simply be observant. It is unlikely that any international company can get it right upon landing in China.

" Not many senior executives can survive that either. "We see it as an evolution in China, then just shrug and say, not many companies can afford to burn US$180 million, after all.