eBay 2013 Annual Report Download - page 11

Enterprise’s Omnichannel Operations . Enterprise’s Omnichannel Operations support fulfillment and customer service functions for its
clients.
Enterprise’s Marketing Solutions. Enterprise’s Marketing Solutions are focused on providing comprehensive, industry-leading solutions
designed to help clients acquire new customers, convert more website visitors into buyers, build customer loyalty and drive revenue across
various channels. Marketing Solutions offers full-service digital agency capabilities, brand marketing, email marketing, database management,
mobile and social advertising, affiliate and search engine marketing, online advertising display retargeting and in-depth analytics capabilities.
While Enterprise operates on a global basis, nearly all of its net revenues in 2013 were derived from its North American operations.
Similar to our Marketplaces and Payments segments, the majority of our Enterprise revenue comes from a take rate on the Merchandise Sales
that we enable through our Commerce Technologies and Omnichannel Operations suite of services, with the remaining revenue coming from
Marketing Solutions. We define Merchandise Sales as the retail value of all sales transactions, inclusive of freight charges and net of allowance
for returns and discounts, which flow through our Enterprise Commerce Technologies whether we record the full amount of such transaction as a
product sale or a percentage of such transaction as a service fee.
Competition
We encounter vigorous competition in our businesses from numerous sources. For our Marketplaces segment, our users can find, buy, sell
and pay for similar items through a variety of competing online, mobile and offline channels. These include, but are not limited to, retailers,
distributors, liquidators, import and export companies, auctioneers, catalog and mail-order companies, classifieds, directories, search engines,
commerce participants (consumer-to-consumer, business-to-consumer and business-to-business), shopping channels and networks. As our
product offerings continue to broaden into new categories of items and new commerce formats, we expect to face additional competition from
other online, mobile and offline channels for those new offerings. We compete on the basis of price, product selection and services.
For our Payments segment, our users may choose to pay through a variety of alternative means, including credit and debit cards,
automated clearing house and bank wires, other online payment services, offline payment methods such as cash, check or money order and using
mobile phones. Likewise, our users may elect to finance their purchases through a broad range of other sources of financing, including credit
cards, lines of credit provided by financial institutions and store credit or layaway plans provided by merchants.
Our Enterprise segment faces different competitors in each of its primary lines of business. Enterprise seeks to compete on the basis of
offering premium capabilities at attractive prices. Each of Enterprise's business units competes on a stand-alone basis with in-house solutions
promoted and supported by internal departments of retailers and other sellers, as well as technology and service providers that supply ecommerce
solutions or components of ecommerce solutions (e.g., website and mobile platforms, customer care/call center services and fulfillment and
logistics) and interactive marketing services, as the case may be. Enterprise also seeks to differentiate itself by cross-selling and bundling
services to offer more attractive pricing and integrated implementations.
For more information regarding these risks, see the information in “Item 1A: Risk Factors” under the captions “Our industries are
intensely competitive” and “We are subject to regulatory activity and antitrust litigation under competition laws.”
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• Enterprise operates five ecommerce fulfillment centers in the U.S., one in Canada and one in the U.K. Within these facilities,
Enterprise utilizes warehouse management systems and infrastructure to provide customized direct-to-consumer fulfillment
solutions, including order management, real-time order status updates and reverse logistics services. Through scale and
partnerships with leading freight providers, Enterprise offers clients favorable shipping rates and innovative freight programs,
including its ShipQuik shipping program. Under this program, packages are presorted by customer zip code, which helps to
shorten the amount of time packages are in transit.
• Enterprise provides customer care services for ecommerce via telephone, live chat and email through three call centers and a
network of customer support agents in the U.S., plus an additional call center in the U.K. Enterprise’s customer care platform
combines proprietary and third-party technologies, including automatic call distribution, computer telephony integration,
interactive voice response, email, workforce management, voice recording/monitoring, and customer relationship management
systems. The U.K. call center offers customer care in multiple languages.