Who does not know eBay nowadays? This global phenomenon has grown to become the world’s largest online marketplace, racking up millions in multi-currency transactions worldwide daily. eBay is a place to buy and sell almost anything on the Internet, almost anywhere in the world. Any business of this magnitude, most would think, would probably have needed a large amount of capitalization. Not quite for eBay.
eBay began in 1995 as AuctionWeb, a part of the personal site of 28-year-old French-Iranian computer programmer Pierre Omidyar. The strange thing is that this worldwide phenomenon was actually fueled by the sale of a broken laser pointer. As far as the stories go, the broken laser pointer went up for auction and sold for $14.83 to a collector.
In 1996, Stanford MBA holder Jeffrey Skoll took over as AuctionWeb’s first president. It was also during this year that AuctionWeb signed its first partnership agreement with a company called Electronic Travel Auction to sell travel-related products, including airline tickets through SmartMarket technology.
A year later, the site was renamed eBay, which was short for Omidyar’s consulting firm, Echo Bay Technology Group. Media interest was generated by a fabricated story that the site was created to help Omidyar’s fiancé sell Pez candy dispensers. Lots of promise was seen on the auction site that prompted venture capital firm Benchmark Capital to invest some $5 million in eBay.
The year 1998 marked another milestone for Omidyar when eBay went public. When the initial public offering opened at $53.50 per share compared to the $18 per share price target, eBay’s revenue growth has been on an uptrend for years. Needless to say, Omidyar and Skoll became billionaires in the blink of an eye. As the new President and CEO, Harvard graduate Meg Whitman has guided eBay to steady growth and business expansion over the years. Despite a slowdown in growth in recent years, eBay is still enjoying a decent amount of revenue.
This $45 billion company now has websites in some 27 countries, though it offers wholesale and retail transaction services around the world. It boasts of an extensive collection of items for sale in almost any condition you can imagine. From the usual everyday items like clothes and shoes, to mundane items like a cooked but uneaten piece of Brussels sprouts, to celebrity-related items like Elvis Presley’s leftover water, eBay has items from everyone. sizes, shapes and categories.
eBay continues to grow today with CEO Whitman still at the helm. Community content features have been enhanced on eBay with the addition of the eBay Community Wiki and eBay blogs to their standard sections such as discussion forums, groups, answer center, chat rooms, etc. Mobile services such as SMS alerts, WAP access and J2ME clients are also available in various territories. eBay’s business has also expanded from wholesale and retail to allied businesses such as online payment systems, Internet Protocol systems, classifieds, and real estate. Recent eBay acquisitions include Skype, PayPal, Craigslist, Half.com, Rent.com, Shopping.com, and Prostores. These businesses certainly provide eBay with the support it needs to fuel further business growth.