eBay
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For the "Weird Al" Yankovic song, see eBay (song).
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| Type | Public (NASDAQ: EBAY) S&P 500 Component |
|---|---|
| Founded | September 3, 1995 |
| Founder | Pierre Omidyar |
| Headquarters | San Jose, California, U.S. |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | Pierre Omidyar (Chairman) John Donahoe (CEO) |
| Industry | Auctions |
| Products | Online auction hosting, Electronic commerce, Shopping mall PayPal , Skype, Gumtree, Kijiji (Now eBayClassifieds), |
| Revenue | ▲ US$8.727 billion (2009)[1] |
| Operating income | ▼ US$1.456 billion (2009)[1] |
| Net income | ▲ US$2.389 billion (2009)[1] |
| Employees | 15,500 (Q1 2008) |
| Slogan | Connecting buyers and sellers globally. Come to think of it, eBay. What ever it is, you can get it on eBay. Shop victoriously! From collectibles to cars, buy and sell all kinds of items on eBay Buy it, sell it, love it |
| Website | www.ebay.com |
| Alexa rank | 21[2] |
| Type of site | Online auction |
| Registration | Required to buy and sell |
| Available in | Multilingual |
| Screenshot[show] | |
eBay Inc. is an American Internet company that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping websitedot-com bubble; it is now a multi-billion dollar business with operations localized in over thirty countries.[3] eBay expanded from its original "set-time" auction format to include "Buy It Now" standard shopping; shopping by UPC, ISBN, or other kind of SKUHalf.com); online classified advertisements (via Kijiji or eBay Classifieds); online event ticket trading (via StubHub); online money transfers (via PayPal[4]) and other services. 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 (via
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[edit] Origins and history
The online auction website was founded as AuctionWeb in San Jose, California, on September 3, 1995, by French-born Iranian computer programmer Pierre Omidyar as part of a larger personal site that included, among other things, Omidyar's own tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Ebola virus.[5] 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."[6] 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. This was revealed in Adam Cohen's 2002 book, The Perfect Store,[5] 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.[7] 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.[8]private equity firm based in Nevis.) (Echobay.com is now owned by Echobay Partners, Ltd., a
In 1997, the company received $6.7 million in funding from the venture capital firm Benchmark Capital.[9]
Meg Whitman was hired as eBay President and CEO in March 1998. At the time, the company had 30 employees[10] half a million users and revenues of $4.7 million in the United States.[11] eBay went public on September 21, 1998,[12] 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.[13]
As the company expanded product categories beyond collectibles into almost any saleable item, business grew quickly.[6] In February 2002, the company purchased IBazar, a similar European auction web site founded in 1995 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.[11] 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.[14] 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.[15]
In July 2010, eBay was sued for $3.8 billion by XPRT Ventures which 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.[16]