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EBAY » Topics » Our failure to cost-effectively manage certain aspects of our business could harm us.

This excerpt taken from the EBAY 10-K filed Feb 17, 2010.

Our failure to cost-effectively manage certain aspects of our business could harm us.

We have expanded our headcount, facilities, and infrastructure in the U.S. and internationally, and anticipate that further expansion in certain areas will be required for some of our businesses. This expansion has placed, and we expect it will continue to place, a significant strain on our management, operational, and financial resources. The areas that are put under strain by our growth include the following:

 

  •  

Website Usability. User activity rates on our websites depend in part on the quality of our users’ experiences on those sites. The rapid growth in the number and complexity of products and features on our sites has occasionally caused users to become confused or overwhelmed or has otherwise impaired users’ experiences on those sites. We are in the process of making numerous improvements to our eBay websites, including an attempt to improve the user experience on those websites. These attempts at improvement could fail, or could decrease activity among users who had grown used to or preferred the existing experience on our sites. Any impairment of customer satisfaction as a result of site usability issues could lead to a loss of customers or impair our ability to add customers, either of which would harm our business.

 

  •  

Website Stability. We must constantly add new hardware, update software and add new engineering personnel to accommodate the increased use of our and our subsidiaries’ websites and the new products and features we regularly introduce. This upgrade process is expensive, and the increased complexity of our websites and the need to support multiple platforms as our portfolio of brands grows increases the cost of additional enhancements. Failure to cost effectively upgrade our technology, features, transaction processing systems, security infrastructure, or network infrastructure to accommodate increased traffic or transaction volume or changes to our site functionality could harm our business. Adverse consequences could include unanticipated system disruptions, slower response times, degradation in levels of customer support, impaired quality of users’ experiences of our services, impaired quality of services for third-party application developers using our externally accessible APIs and delays in reporting accurate financial information. We may be unable to effectively upgrade and expand our systems in a timely manner or smoothly integrate any newly developed or purchased technologies or businesses with our existing systems, and any failure to do so could result in problems on our sites. Further, steps to increase the reliability and redundancy of our systems are expensive, reduce our margins, and may not be successful in reducing the frequency or duration of unscheduled downtime.

 

  •  

Customer Account Billing. Our revenues depend on prompt and accurate billing processes. Our failure to grow our transaction-processing capabilities to accommodate the increasing number of transactions that must be billed on any of our websites would harm our business and our ability to collect revenue.

 

  •  

Customer Support. We seek to become more efficient in providing our customer support operations. We intend to provide an increased level of support (including an increasing amount of telephone support) in a cost-effective manner. If we are unable to provide customer support in a cost-effective manner, users of our websites may have negative experiences, current and future revenues could suffer, our costs may increase and our operating margins may decrease.

We must continue to effectively hire, train, and manage new employees. If our new hires perform poorly, if we are unsuccessful in hiring, training, managing, and integrating these new employees, or if we are not successful in retaining our existing employees, our business may be harmed. To manage the expected growth of our operations and personnel, we will need to improve our transaction processing, operational and financial systems, procedures, and controls. This is a special challenge as we acquire new operations with different systems. Our current and planned personnel, systems, procedures, and controls may not be adequate to support our future operations. Any capital investments that we may make will increase our cost base, which will make it more difficult for us to offset any future revenue shortfalls by expense reductions in the short term.

 

43

Table of Contents
This excerpt taken from the EBAY 10-Q filed Apr 28, 2009.

Our failure to cost-effectively manage certain aspects of our business could harm us.

We have expanded our headcount, facilities, and infrastructure in the U.S. and internationally, and anticipate that further expansion in certain areas will be required for some of our businesses. This expansion has placed, and we expect it will continue to place, a significant strain on our management, operational, and financial resources. The areas that are put under strain by our growth include the following:

 

  •  

Website Usability. User activity rates on our websites depend in part on the quality of our users’ experiences on those sites. The rapid growth in the number and complexity of products and features on our sites has occasionally caused users to become confused or overwhelmed or has otherwise impaired users’ experiences on those sites. We are in the process of making numerous improvements to our eBay websites, including an attempt to improve the user experience on those websites. These attempts at improvement could fail, or could decrease activity among users who had grown used to or preferred the existing experience on our sites. Any impairment of customer satisfaction as a result of site usability issues could lead to a loss of customers or impair our ability to add customers, either of which would harm our business.

 

  •  

Website Stability. We must constantly add new hardware, update software and add new engineering personnel to accommodate the increased use of our and our subsidiaries’ websites and the new products and features we regularly introduce. This upgrade process is expensive, and the increased complexity of our websites and the need to support multiple platforms as our portfolio of brands grows increases the cost of additional enhancements. Failure to upgrade our technology, features, transaction processing systems, security infrastructure, or network infrastructure to accommodate increased traffic or transaction volume could harm our business. Adverse consequences could include unanticipated system disruptions, slower response times, degradation in levels of customer support, impaired quality of users’ experiences of our services, impaired quality of services for third-party application developers using our externally accessible Application Programming Interface, or API, and delays in reporting accurate financial information. We may be unable to effectively upgrade and expand our systems in a timely manner or smoothly integrate any newly developed or purchased technologies or businesses with our existing systems, and any failure to do so could result in problems on our sites. Further, steps to increase the reliability and redundancy of our systems are expensive, reduce our margins, and may not be successful in reducing the frequency or duration of unscheduled downtime.

 

  •  

Customer Account Billing. Our revenues depend on prompt and accurate billing processes. Our failure to grow our transaction-processing capabilities to accommodate the increasing number of transactions that must be billed on any of our websites would harm our business and our ability to collect revenue.

 

  •  

Customer Support. We seek to become more efficient in providing our customer support operations. We intend to provide an increased level of support (including an increasing amount of telephone support) in a cost-effective manner. If we are unable to provide customer support in a cost-effective manner, users of our websites may have negative experiences, current and future revenues could suffer, our costs may increase and our operating margins may decrease.

We must continue to effectively hire, train, and manage new employees. If our new hires perform poorly, if we are unsuccessful in hiring, training, managing, and integrating these new employees, or if we are not successful in retaining our existing employees, our business may be harmed. To manage the expected growth of our operations and personnel, we will need to improve our transaction processing, operational and financial systems, procedures, and controls. This is a special challenge as we acquire new operations with different systems. Our current and planned personnel, systems, procedures, and controls may not be adequate to support our future operations. Any capital investments that we may make will increase our cost base, which will make it more difficult for us to offset any future revenue shortfalls by expense reductions in the short term.

These excerpts taken from the EBAY 10-K filed Feb 20, 2009.
Our failure to cost-effectively manage certain aspects of our business could harm us.
 
We have expanded our headcount, facilities, and infrastructure in the U.S. and internationally, and anticipate that further expansion in certain areas will be required as we continue to expand into new lines of business and geographic areas. This expansion has placed, and we expect it will continue to place, a significant strain on our management, operational, and financial resources. The areas that are put under strain by our growth include the following:
 
  •  Website Usability.  User activity rates on our websites depend in part on the quality of our users’ experiences on those sites. The rapid growth in the number and complexity of products and features on our sites has occasionally caused users to become confused or overwhelmed or has otherwise impaired users’ experiences on those sites. We are in the process of making numerous improvements to our eBay websites, including an attempt to improve the user experience on those websites. These attempts at improvement could fail, or could decrease activity among users who had grown used to or preferred the existing experience on our sites. Any impairment of customer satisfaction as a result of site usability issues could lead to a loss of customers or impair our ability to add customers, either of which would harm our business.
 
  •  Website Stability.  We must constantly add new hardware, update software and add new engineering personnel to accommodate the increased use of our and our subsidiaries’ websites and the new products and features we regularly introduce. This upgrade process is expensive, and the increased complexity of our websites and the need to support multiple platforms as our portfolio of brands grows increases the cost of additional enhancements. Failure to upgrade our technology, features, transaction processing systems, security infrastructure, or network infrastructure to accommodate increased traffic or transaction volume could harm our business. Adverse consequences could include unanticipated system disruptions, slower response times, degradation in levels of customer support, impaired quality of users’ experiences of our services, impaired quality of services for third-party application developers using our externally accessible Application Programming Interface, or API, and delays in reporting accurate financial information. We may be unable to effectively upgrade and expand our systems in a timely manner or smoothly integrate any newly developed or purchased technologies or businesses with our existing systems, and any failure to do so could result in problems on our sites. Further, steps to increase the reliability and redundancy of our systems are expensive, reduce our margins, and may not be successful in reducing the frequency or duration of unscheduled downtime.
 
  •  Customer Account Billing.  Our revenues depend on prompt and accurate billing processes. Our failure to grow our transaction-processing capabilities to accommodate the increasing number of transactions that must be billed on any of our websites would harm our business and our ability to collect revenue.
 
  •  Customer Support.  We seek to become more efficient in providing our customer support operations. We intend to provide an increased level of support (including an increasing amount of telephone support) in a cost-effective manner. If we are unable to provide customer support in a cost-effective manner, users of our websites may have negative experiences, current and future revenues could suffer, our costs may increase and our operating margins may decrease.
 
We must continue to effectively hire, train, and manage new employees. If our new hires perform poorly, if we are unsuccessful in hiring, training, managing, and integrating these new employees, or if we are not successful in retaining our existing employees, our business may be harmed. To manage the expected growth of our operations and personnel, we will need to improve our transaction processing, operational and financial systems, procedures, and controls. This is a special challenge as we acquire new operations with different systems. Our current and planned personnel, systems, procedures, and controls may not be adequate to support our future operations. Any capital investments that we may make will increase our cost base, which will make it more difficult for us to offset any future revenue shortfalls by expense reductions in the short term.


39

Table of Contents

Our
failure to cost-effectively manage certain aspects of our
business could harm us.


 



We have expanded our headcount, facilities, and infrastructure
in the U.S. and internationally, and anticipate that
further expansion in certain areas will be required as we
continue to expand into new lines of business and geographic
areas. This expansion has placed, and we expect it will continue
to place, a significant strain on our management, operational,
and financial resources. The areas that are put under strain by
our growth include the following:


 














































  • 
Website Usability.  User activity rates on our
websites depend in part on the quality of our users’
experiences on those sites. The rapid growth in the number and
complexity of products and features on our sites has
occasionally caused users to become confused or overwhelmed or
has otherwise impaired users’ experiences on those sites.
We are in the process of making numerous improvements to our
eBay websites, including an attempt to improve the user
experience on those websites. These attempts at improvement
could fail, or could decrease activity among users who had grown
used to or preferred the existing experience on our sites. Any
impairment of customer satisfaction as a result of site
usability issues could lead to a loss of customers or impair our
ability to add customers, either of which would harm our
business.
 
  • 
Website Stability.  We must constantly add new
hardware, update software and add new engineering personnel to
accommodate the increased use of our and our subsidiaries’
websites and the new products and features we regularly
introduce. This upgrade process is expensive, and the increased
complexity of our websites and the need to support multiple
platforms as our portfolio of brands grows increases the cost of
additional enhancements. Failure to upgrade our technology,
features, transaction processing systems, security
infrastructure, or network infrastructure to accommodate
increased traffic or transaction volume could harm our business.
Adverse consequences could include unanticipated system
disruptions, slower response times, degradation in levels of
customer support, impaired quality of users’ experiences of
our services, impaired quality of services for third-party
application developers using our externally accessible
Application Programming Interface, or API, and delays in
reporting accurate financial information. We may be unable to
effectively upgrade and expand our systems in a timely manner or
smoothly integrate any newly developed or purchased technologies
or businesses with our existing systems, and any failure to do
so could result in problems on our sites. Further, steps to
increase the reliability and redundancy of our systems are
expensive, reduce our margins, and may not be successful in
reducing the frequency or duration of unscheduled downtime.
 
  • 
Customer Account Billing.  Our revenues depend
on prompt and accurate billing processes. Our failure to grow
our transaction-processing capabilities to accommodate the
increasing number of transactions that must be billed on any of
our websites would harm our business and our ability to collect
revenue.
 
  • 
Customer Support.  We seek to become more
efficient in providing our customer support operations. We
intend to provide an increased level of support (including an
increasing amount of telephone support) in a cost-effective
manner. If we are unable to provide customer support in a
cost-effective manner, users of our websites may have negative
experiences, current and future revenues could suffer, our costs
may increase and our operating margins may decrease.


 



We must continue to effectively hire, train, and manage new
employees. If our new hires perform poorly, if we are
unsuccessful in hiring, training, managing, and integrating
these new employees, or if we are not successful in retaining
our existing employees, our business may be harmed. To manage
the expected growth of our operations and personnel, we will
need to improve our transaction processing, operational and
financial systems, procedures, and controls. This is a special
challenge as we acquire new operations with different systems.
Our current and planned personnel, systems, procedures, and
controls may not be adequate to support our future operations.
Any capital investments that we may make will increase our cost
base, which will make it more difficult for us to offset any
future revenue shortfalls by expense reductions in the short
term.





39




Table of Contents







EXCERPTS ON THIS PAGE:

10-K
Feb 17, 2010
10-Q
Apr 28, 2009
10-K (2 sections)
Feb 20, 2009

RELATED TOPICS for EBAY:

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