eBay Inc. is the world's largest online marketplace and auction website, with more than 90 million active users worldwide. Founded in 1995 in San Jose, California by Pierre Omidyar, the first item sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer for $14.83(cite). eBay's first target market was antique collectors and sellers. eBay now connects a diverse community of buyers, sellers and many small businesses around the world. Almost anyone can buy and sell anything on eBay. eBay has a significant impact on e-commerce: in 2009, the total value of goods sold on eBay was $60 billion, or $2,000 per second (cite). Even as eBay strives to expand e-commerce, system outages, lack of control over counterfeit products, and exposure to Internet fraud pose threats to eBay by preventing buyers and sellers from using eBay .com. Issue 1: System outages Cause: Third-party services are not accessibleImpact: Reduce current and future retaliation and harm customer businessesRecommendation: Improve system monitoring and provide adequate noticeSystem outages cause many service providers to become unavailable eBay like PayPal and Skype. eBay Inc. acquired PayPal in 2002. Since then, PayPal's customer base has grown both on eBay and in e-commerce (cite). eBay uses PayPal for one of its online payment methods. Long-term system outages increase operational risk for eBay. In 2008, the eBay.com site was down for periods of up to 10 p.m. and PayPal was unavailable for five consecutive days (cite). Skype is another eBay service. The company was purchased by eBay in September 2005 for $2.6 billion (cite=dm). eBay users use Skype for a faster means of communication, allowing users to have video and voice calls...... middle of paper ...... sales unlikely to succeed to obtain meaningful offers for goods. Additionally, eBay maintains a comprehensive fraud protection program, with staff monitoring the company's sites for questionable activity. The company also offers escrow and insurance services for more expensive items (quoted by Standard and Poor's). eBay has always been very successful in targeting its business goals and has been quick to seize opportunities such as acquiring services, such as PayPal and Skype. Meanwhile, the weaknesses and threats mentioned above; System failures, lack of control over counterfeit products and exposure to Internet fraud are the main problems affecting eBay and its target market. These issues have a negative effect on eBay and may cause many users to stop using eBay.com. eBay needs to address and resolve these issues in order to attract new users.