eBay Inc.

 (/ˈiːbeɪ/ EE-bay) is an American multinational e-commerce corporation
based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-
to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in
1995, and became a notable success story of the dot-com bubble. eBay is a
multibillion-dollar business with operations in about 32 countries, as of 2019.[1][2] The
company manages the eBay website, an online auction and shopping website in
which people and businesses buy and sell a wide variety of goods and
services worldwide. The website is free to use for buyers, but sellers are charged
fees for listing items after a limited number of free listings, and again when those
items are sold.[3]
In addition to eBay's original auction-style sales, the website has evolved and
expanded to include: instant "Buy It Now" shopping; shopping by Universal Product
Code, ISBN, or other kind of SKU number (via Half.com, which was shut down in
2017); online classified advertisements (via Kijiji, or eBay Classifieds); online event
ticket trading (via StubHub); and other services. eBay previously offered online
money transfers as part of its services (via PayPal,[4] which was a wholly owned
subsidiary of eBay from 2002 to 2015).[5]
The AuctionWeb was founded in California on September 3, 1995, by French-
born Iranian-American computer programmer Pierre Omidyar as part of a larger
personal site.[6] One of the first items sold on AuctionWeb 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; the buyer explained: "I'm a collector of
broken laser pointers."[7][8] It soon became the first online auction site allowing person-
to-person transactions, and its popularity boomed.[9]
Reportedly, eBay was simply a hobby for Omidyar until his Internet service provider
informed him he would need to upgrade to a business account due to his high
website traffic. The monthly price increase from $30 to $250 prompted him to start
charging eBay users, who did not object.[citation needed] Chris Agarpao was eBay's first
additional employee to process mailed check payments.[10]

Pierre Omidyar, founder and chairman of eBay

Jeffrey Skoll was hired as the first new president of the company in early 1996. In
November 1996, the E-Commerce platform 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:
from 250,000 auctions during all of 1996 to 200,000 in January 1997 alone.[11][6]
The company officially changed the name of its service from AuctionWeb to eBay in
September 1997, after Echo Bay Technology Group, Omidyar's consulting firm. The
domain name echobay.com was already taken by a gold mining company,[12] so
Omidyar shortened it to eBay.com.[13] In 1997 the company received $6.7 million in
funding from the venture capital firm Benchmark Capital.[14]
The frequently repeated story that eBay was founded to help Omidyar's fiancée
trade Pez candy dispensers was fabricated in 1997 by public relations manager Mary
Lou Song to give the media a human-interest story more appealing than Omidyar's
original vision of a "perfect market".[15][6] The Pez dispenser myth generated enormous
publicity and led to explosive early growth among toy collectors.
The leader in the toy category quickly became Beanie Babies manufactured by Ty,
Inc., the most difficult toys to find in retail stores. As collectors internationally were
trying to complete their collection of Beanie Babies, Ty set up the first business-to-
consumer Web site, a secondary-market online trading post where people could
trade their Beanie Babies. However, it was overwhelmed with unsortable listings,
creating an urgent demand for a more efficient online trading system.[16][17] Beanie
Babies quickly became the dominant product on eBay, accounting for 10% of all
listings in 1997, as collectors thronged eBay's user-friendly interface to search for
specific Beanie Babies.
Meg Whitman was hired by the board as eBay president and CEO in March 1998. At
the time, the company had 30 employees,[18] half a million users and revenues of $4.7
million in the United States.[19]
On September 21, 1998, eBay went public.[20] In the risk factors section of the annual
report filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in 1998, Omidyar
notes eBay's dependence on the continued strength of the Beanie Babies market.[16]
[21]
 After eBay went public, both Omidyar and Skoll became instant billionaires: eBay's
target of $18 per share was all but ignored as the price went to $53.50 on the first
day of trading.[22]
In 2012 eBay was charged by the United States Department of Justice with entering
into non-solicitation agreements with other technology companies involving their
highly skilled employees.[27]
On September 30, 2014, eBay announced it would spin off PayPal into a separate
publicly traded company, a demand made nine months prior by activist hedge fund
magnate Carl Icahn. The spinoff completed on July 18, 2015. eBay's then chief
executive, John Donahoe, stepped down from that role.[28][29][30] Flipkart and eBay
entered into a strategic partnership in 2017 under which eBay Inc acquired a 5.44%
stake in Flipkart in exchange for its eBay India business for $211 Mn and a $514 Mn
cash investment. As part of the partnership, Flipkart decided to use the eBay's
platform for global outsourcing.[31]
On January 31, 2018, eBay announced that they would replace PayPal as its primary
payments provider with Netherlands-based start-up Adyen. The transition was set to
be completed by 2021, but PayPal would remain an acceptable payment option on
the site until further notice.[32]
On September 21, 2018, it was reported that eBay would install a security fence
around the perimeter of its San Jose headquarters in response to the YouTube
headquarters shooting earlier that year.[33]
On July 31, 2019, the company acquired a 5.59 percent stake in Paytm Mall.[34]
On September 25, 2019, it was announced that Devin Wenig would be stepping
down as eBay's CEO, and that Scott Schenkel, senior vice president and chief
financial officer since 2015, had been appointed as the interim CEO.[35] On April 13,
2020, it was announced that Jamie Iannone would become the CEO on April 27.
  On June 15, 2020, eBay clarified[37] that Wenig and five other employees were
[36]

terminated in September after a law enforcement notification in August because of a

possibly criminal case of harassment of journalists perpetrated by some of the
terminated employees.[38][39][40] The six are charged with Aggressive Cyberstalking.[41]