eBay Inc. is an American multinational 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. 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) and other services.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.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, 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.By 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.
Total assets $ 27.320 billion (2011)