Choosing e-commerce strategies: a case study of eBay.vn partnership

The case uses the story of one of the leading e-commerce firms in Vietnam to introduce students to concepts and models of e-commerce, and in particular, to help students get familiar with cultural, ethical and legal issues in doing cross-border e-commerce. After solving the top three challenges in doing e-commerce in Vietnam within the past 9 years – enabling a reliable and secured online transaction, building customers’ trust in buyers and providing an effective shipping service, the CEO needed to consider whether he should expand his proven successful domestic ecosystem extensively or build a completely new one to serve his company’s strategic move: doing cross-border e-commerce in Southeast Asia where there exist established players in the highly competitive and technology savvy market. Such a key strategic event occurred in early 2014.