The Internationalization of a C2C E-commerce Platform Provider, Case: Trendsales ApS

Internationalization of firms is a widely studied business phenomenon, which, after several decades of study, still persists as an important interest among International Business scholars. This master’s thesis examines the internationalization process of a company, which offers an internet-based fashion trading platform for private consumers, and can, thus, be defined as a customer-to-customer (C2C) e-commerce platform provider. This case company, Denmark based Trendsales ApS, has to date expanded its operations to Finland, Sweden and Norway. The main objective of this study is to provide a rich description of the case company’s internationalization process, and to thereby suggest how the internet-based C2C strategy affects internationalization. The underlying motivation for this study is the relatively scarce academic literature concerning the internet and the C2C strategy in relation to firm internationalization. The study is conducted based on a single case study design, which focuses on the international undertakings of the case company. A traditional internationalization model, the POM-model by Reijo Luostarinen (1979), is used as a framework for the examination in order to form a holistic view on the studied phenomenon. The main output of this thesis is a model combining three strategic aspects (concept, operations and markets) in Trendsales’ internationalization. The main findings conclude that the company has to date internationalized in a step-wise manner and has not captured all the advantages offered by the internet. The C2C strategy has demanded for increased local adaptation, which is why a fully global internationalization strategy has not been utilized. Although Web 2.0 based technologies are the bases of Trendsales’ business model, social exchange was found to play a supportive role in this strategy. The supporting findings of this thesis study relate to the internet as an operational environment.