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eBay
eBay Business Information |
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 eBay
Inc. is an American Internet company that manages eBay.com, an
online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses
buy and sell goods and services worldwide. In addition to its
original U.S. website, eBay has established localized websites in
thirty other countries. eBay Inc. also owns PayPal, Skype, StubHub,
Kijiji, and other businesses.
The online auction website was founded in San Jose,
California, on September 3, 1995, by French-born Iranian computer
programmer Pierre Omidyar as AuctionWeb, part of a larger personal
site that included, among other things, Omidyar's own
tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Ebola virus. In 1997, the company
received approximately $5 million in funding from the venture
capital firm Benchmark Capital.
The very first item sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer for
$14.83 (though in 2008, eBay banned the sale of laser pointers.).
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. 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. 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 (the
domain has recently been put up for sale) but found it already taken
by the Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, so he shortened it to
his second choice, eBay.com.
eBay went public on September 21, 1998, and both Omidyar and Skoll
became instant billionaires. The company purchased PayPal on October
14, 2002.
eBay
eBay Business Information
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