EachNet is a new platform that jointly founded by eBay and Tom.com in China, and now it has opened to the public. As announced on EachNet’s community forum (in Mandarin), the existing eBay China users are required to re-activate their membership on this new platform. The existing and previous eBay platform in China, i.e. ebay.com.cn will be shut down permanently after this coming 10th July, as stated in their Memo. A bit sad to read this type of news after I examined the history, the growth, the launched of eBay’s platform in China in September 2004, and the fall of this great Internet company in China.

The shift from the wholly-owned to a joint-venture EachNet platform reminded us many things, overseas market, not to mention China alone, most companies will face the cultural shock that they ever imagined. I’m not agreed to a statement that joint-venture is the only business model that one Internet firm can work on in China, this type of statements can be misled, I rather believe the management theory of “distance still matter,” how easily things can go terribly awry in overseas markets.

See also my June 2007 post on eBay China, entitled, “New eBay China Platform Launches.“

In April, I did posted a post that entitled, “Tom eBay China To Be Launched In July,” and now the new platform is goes live, with the domain name is as follow: kaifa.tom.com, and the platform is shown in the above picture. The domain name chosen became quite profound to me: Are eBay is going to destroy the goodwill of EachNet? However, at this moment while I access to EachNet.com, it will bring me to the eBay China’s home page.

What sets EachNet apart is it was the first China’s online auction platform. Founded in year 1999, eBay first partnered with EachNet in March 2002, and increased its investment in EachNet in June 2003. Later in July 2003, eBay completed the EachNet investment, amounted to a total $180 million of cash in acquired EachNet.