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eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY; http://www.ebay.com) is The World's Online
Marketplace for the sale of goods and services by a diverse community of
individuals and businesses. Today, the eBay community includes tens of millions
of registered members from around the world. People spend more time on eBay than
any other online site, making it the most popular shopping destination on the
Internet. eBay is headquartered in San Jose, California (Map) and has a second
location in Draper, Utah (Map).
eBay
History
In September 1995, AuctionWeb was
born. The first auction was conducted on Labor Day weekend, and within a few
weeks, buyers and sellers began flocking to the service. Founded by Pierre
Omidyar as "AuctionWeb", part of a larger personal site that included, among
other things, Omidyar's own tribute to the Ebola virus.
Omidyar incorporated the enterprise;
the small fee he collected on each sale financed the expansion of the site. The
revenue soon outstripped his salary at General Magic and Omidyar decided to
dedicate his full attention to his new enterprise. Business expanded through
word of mouth, and Auction Web added a Feedback Forum, allowing buyers and
sellers to rate each other for honesty and reliability.
The site belonged
to Echo Bay Technology Group, Omidyar's consulting firm. He had tried to
register the domain name "EchoBay.com" but found it already taken, so he
shortened it to his second choice, "eBay.com". Most people believe that the site
was originally marketed to investors as a place to sell and trade PEZ dispensers
but it was designed to sell "Anything and Everything" like collectible
items.
Omidyar changed the company's name to eBay in 1997 and began to
advertise the service aggressively. By the middle of that year, eBay was hosting
nearly 800,000 auctions a day. By the time eBay went public in 1998, the site
had more than a million registered users. By the end of the year, the value of
Omidyar's personal stake in the company was nearly $3 billion. Pierre Omidyar
has served as Chairman of the Board since its incorporation. At first he also
served as Chief Financial Officer, President and CEO, but he relinquished these
positions one by one, the last when he hired former Hasbro executive Margaret
Whitman to serve as CEO in 1998.
The first item sold on eBay (then
AuctionWeb) was a broken laser pointer that sold for $14 dollars (more then the
cost of a new one at the time.) I wonder if Pierre ever thought that he would be
a mutli-millionaire when that first item sold?
Harvard Business
School-trained Meg Whitman has served as eBay's president and CEO since March
1998. In terms of revenue growth, eBay is the fastest-growing company of all
time and there is still lots of room for future growth.
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eBay generated consolidated net
revenues of $6.00 billion in 2006, a 31% increase over the $4.6 billion in 2005.
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The eBay platform confirmed
registered user base at the end of Q4-06 totaled 222 million, representing a 23%
increase over the 181 million registered users reported at the end of
Q4-05.
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eBay expects consolidated net
revenues for 2007 to be in the range of $7.050 billion to $7.300
billion.
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PayPal had 133 million total accounts
at the end of Q4-06, a 38% increase from the 96 million reported in
Q4-05.
Unusual eBay
Events
1. In June 2005, the wife of Tim
Shaw, a British radio DJ on Kerrang! 105.2, sold Tim's Lotus Esprit sports car
with a Buy It Now price of 50 pence after she heard him flirting with model
Jodie Marsh on air. The car was sold within 5 minutes, and it was requested that
the buyer pick it up the same day.
2. In May 2005, a Volkswagen Golf that
had previously been registered to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (who had been
elected Pope Benedict XVI) was sold on eBay's German site for €188,938.88. The
winning bid was made by the GoldenPalace.com online casino, known for their
outrageous eBay purchases.
3. In September 2004, the owner of MagicGoat.com
sold the contents of his trash can to a middle school language arts teacher, who
intended to have her students write essays about the trash before it was cleared
away by a well-meaning janitor.
4. Water that was said to have been left in a
cup Elvis Presley once drank from was sold for $455. The few tablespoons came
from a plastic cup Presley sipped at a concert in North Carolina in 1977.
5.
A Coventry University student got £1.20 for a single cornflake.
6. A man from
Brisbane, Australia attempted to sell New Zealand at a starting price of
$.01AUD. The price had risen to $3,000 before eBay closed the auction.
7. One
of the tunnel boring machines involved in the construction of the Channel Tunnel
was auctioned on eBay in 2004.
8. A man from Arizona sold an air guitar on
eBay for $5.50.
9. A group of four men from Australia auctioned themselves to
spend the weekend with the promise of "beers, snags, good conversation and a
hell of a lot of laughs" for AU$1,300
10. Disney sold a retired Monorail Red
(Mark IV Monorail) for $20,000
11. The German Language Association sold the
German language to call attention for the growing influence of Pidgin-English in
modern German
12. In late November 2005, the original Hollywood sign was sold
on eBay for $450,400.
13. In February 2007, after Britney Spears shaved all
of her hair off in a Los Angeles salon, it was listed on EBay for $1million USD
before it was taken down after some considerable controversy.
Some expensive
items sold on eBay
1. Grumman Gulfstream II jet ($4.9
million)
2. 1993 San Lorenzo 80 Motoryacht ($1,935,300)
3. 1909 Honus
Wagner baseball card ($1.265 million)
4. Diamond Lake Resort, western
Kentucky ($1.2 million)
5. Enzo Ferrari ($975,000, October 2004)
6.
Shoeless Joe Jackson's "Black Betsy" baseball bat ($577,610)
7. Round of
golf with Tiger Woods ($425,000)
8. Portions of the 1996-2001 Jeopardy! set.
The 9-foot-high Jeopardy! logo that was etched in glass as the backdrop sold for
approximately $100,000. One of the contestant podiums sold for nearly $10,000
(proceeds of the set's sale went to charity)
9. In the aftermath of both the
2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, the Tonight Show auctioned off
two Harley-Davidson motorcycles, which had been signed by various celebrities.
The winning bid for the motorcycle auctioned after the Tsunami was $800,100.
10. Following Hurricane Katrina the Lego Group auctioned off the custom made
Republic Attack Cruiser (built to promote Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the
Sith). Built using more than 35,000 pieces the model raised $31,000 for Habitat
for Humanity.
Largest Items
Sold on eBay
1. One of the largest items ever sold
was a World War II submarine, sold by a small town in New England that decided
it did not need the historical relic anymore.
2. One of the tunnel boring
machines involved in the construction of the Channel Tunnel was auctioned on
eBay in 2004.
3. One of the largest items ever to be put up to auction and
not sold was a decommissioned aircraft carrier, the HMS Vengeance. The auction
was placed by an anonymous seller from Brazil, but was removed before the
auction completed because eBay forbids the sale of military ordnance.
4. The
town of Bridgeville, California was sold for $1,777,877. However the winning
bidder backed out of the deal and Bruce Krall subsequently purchased it for
$700,000. It was placed for sale on eBay once again on April 4, 2006, with a
starting price of $1,750,000. |
