eBay
eBay Inc. EBay Logo.svg
Type Public
Traded as NASDAQ:
EBAY
NASDAQ-100 Component
S&P 500 Component
Founded September 3, 1995
Founder(s) Pierre
Omidyar
Headquarters San
Jose, California, U.S.
Area served Worldwide
Key people John
Donahoe (CEO)
Pierre Omidyar (Chairman)
Industry Internet,
Online shopping
Products eBayClassifieds,
electronic commerce, Gumtree, Kijiji, online auction hosting, PayPal, shopping
mall
Revenue increase
US$ 11.651 billion (2011)
Operating income increase
US$ 2.373 billion (2011)
Net income increase
US$ 3.229 billion (2011)
Total assets increase
US$ 27.320 billion (2011)
Total equity increase
US$ 17.929 billion (2011)
Employees 27,770
(2011)
Slogan
"World's Online Marketplace."
"Connecting buyers and sellers globally."
"What ever it is, you can get it on eBay."
"Buy it, sell it, love it"
Website eBay.com
IPv6 support No
Alexa rank steady
20 (February 2012)[2]
Type of site Online
auction
Registration Required
to buy and sell
Available in Multilingual
eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) is an American internet
consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and
shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of
goods and services worldwide. Founded in 1995, eBay is one of the notable
success stories of the dot-com bubble; it is now a multi-billion dollar
business with operations localized in over thirty countries.[3][4] eBay
expanded from its original "set-time" auction format to include
"Buy It Now" standard shopping; shopping by UPC, ISBN, or other kind
of SKU (via Half.com); online classified advertisements (via Kijiji or eBay
Classifieds); online event ticket trading (via StubHub); online money transfers
(via PayPal[5]) and other services.
Origins and history
eBay headquarters in San Jose,
California
The online auction website was founded as AuctionWeb in San
Jose, California, on September 5, 1995, by French-born Iranian-American
computer programmer Pierre Omidyar (born June 21, 1967) as part of a larger
personal site that included, among other things, Omidyar's own tongue-in-cheek
tribute to the Ebola virus.[6] One of the first items sold on eBay was a broken
laser pointer for $14.83. Astonished, Omidyar contacted the winning bidder to
ask if he understood that the laser pointer was broken. In his responding
email, the buyer explained: "I'm a collector of broken laser
pointers." The frequently repeated story that eBay was founded to help
Omidyar's fiancée trade Pez candy dispensers was fabricated by a public
relations manager in 1997 to interest the media, which were not interested in
the company's previous explanation about wanting to create a "perfect
market".This was revealed in Adam Cohen's 2002 book, The Perfect
Store, and confirmed by eBay.
Chris Agarpao was hired as eBay's first employee and Jeffrey
Skoll was hired as the first president of the company in early 1996. In
November 1996, eBay entered into its first third-party licensing deal, with a
company called Electronic Travel Auction to use SmartMarket Technology to sell
plane tickets and other travel products. Growth was phenomenal; in January 1997
the site hosted 2,000,000 auctions, compared with 250,000 during the whole of
1996. The company officially changed the name of its service from AuctionWeb
to eBay in September 1997. Originally, the site belonged to Echo Bay Technology
Group, Omidyar's consulting firm. Omidyar had tried to register the domain name
echobay.com, but found it already taken by the Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining
company, so he shortened it to his second choice, eBay.com.
In 1997, the company received $6.7 million in funding from
the venture capital firm Benchmark Capital.
Meg Whitman was hired as eBay President and CEO in March
1998. At the time, the company had 30 employees,[13] half a million users and
revenues of $4.7 million in the United States.eBay went public on September 21, 1998, and both
Omidyar and Skoll became instant billionaires. eBay's target share price of $18
was all but ignored as the price went to $53.50 on the first day of
trading.
As the company expanded product categories beyond
collectibles into almost any saleable item, business grew quickly. In
February 2002, the company purchased IBazar, a similar European auction web
site founded in 1993 and then bought PayPal on October 14, 2002.
In early 2008, the company had expanded worldwide, counted
hundreds of millions of registered users, 15,000+ employees and revenues of
almost $7.7 billion.After nearly ten years at eBay, Whitman made the
decision to enter politics. On January 23, 2008 the company announced that
Whitman would step down on March 31,
2008 and John Donahoe was selected to become President and CEO.Whitman remained on the Board of Directors and continued to advise Donahoe
through 2008. In late 2009, eBay completed the sale of Skype for $2.75 billion,
but will still own 30% equity in the company.
In July 2010, eBay was sued for $3.8 billion by XPRT
Ventures that accused eBay of stealing information shared in confidence by the
inventors on XPRT's own patents, and incorporated it into features in its own
payment systems, such as PayPal Pay Later and PayPal Buyer Credit.
On December 20,
2010, eBay announced its acquisition of a German online shopping
club, brands4friends.de, for €150 million ($197 million) to strengthen the
company's interests in the fashion industry in Europe.
It is subject to regulatory approval and expected to close it in the Q1 2011.