-E.CoMmErzE-: Identify and compare the revenue model for Google,Amazon and ebay

A revenue model is a description how the organization earn their revenue. There are 5 main revenue model, Sales, Transaction fees, Subscription fees, Advertising fees, and Affiliate fee.

The main revenue of Google is advertising fees, accounted 97% of its year 2008 revenue

Google AdWords is a program that enables advertisers to place advertisements in Google's search results and the Google Content Network. Most of AdWords advertisers pay on a cost-per-click basis or on a cost-per-impression basis.

Google AdSense refers to the online programs through which Google distribute their advertisers’ AdWords ads for display on the web sites of their Google Network members.Google will share most of the advertising fee generated with that member.

Besides, Google also earn money through subscription fee, for example Google Apps Premium Edition which includes such extras functions like more disk space for e-mail, API access, and premium support, for a price of US$50 per user per year.

The primary source of Amazon’s revenue is the sale of a wide range of products and service to customers, accounted 97%of its year 2008 revenue.

Besides, Amazon generates revenues by subscription fee, for example Amazon Prime, which offers customers unlimited expedited shipping with no minimum purchase amount for $79 per year. Furthermore, Amazon also generates revenue by advertisement fee, but it just accounts a small percentage of Amazon total revenue

Amazon also will receive commission on certain percentage of sales from its WebStore service, which allow merchants create e-commerce websites using Amazon technology. They can customize their sites using their own photos and branding.

EBay generates most of its revenue from transaction fee (Marketplace, Payments, Communications), which accounted 97% of its year 2007 revenue. In marketplace, EBay generates revenue from a number of fees, for example list a product (Insertion Fee), fees when the product sells (Final Value Fee).For payment, it earn transaction fees from the PayPal which is main payment means use in the EBay transaction..

Advertising fee and other accounted the other 3% of the EBay revenue.

In conclusion, each of these 3 companies derived most of their revenue by different way,

Google has a strong presence in the online search engine advertising market; Amazon is a top e-retail site which sells a wide range of product. And EBay is a leader in online auction site which earn revenue from transaction fee.