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eBay Auctions Home Business 

eBay: In the Beginning

 

The online auction website eBay was first launched by Pierre Omidyar in the fall of 1995 as an online person-to-person trading community on the Internet. Omidyar’s purpose was to experiment how equal access to information and opportunities would affect the efficiency of a marketplace. He was twenty-eight years old at the time when he created what would become the internationally successful eBay. Omidyar started the company from his home under the initial name of AuctionWeb, owned by Echo Bay Technology, his consulting firm. Finding that the Echobay.com domain was already registered, it was soon changed to eBay.com. Auction Web was hosted on a larger site; one that Omidyar had created containing information on other topics, including infectious diseases.
 


The first item that was ever sold on the website was a laser pointer that no longer worked for almost fifteen dollars. The original story was that the company was founded in order to help Omidyar’s fiancée find rare and collectible Pez candy dispensers. It was later revealed that this story was fictitious and made up by a public relations firm in order to garner interest from the media. The company took off as people began to trade their items among one another. Originally, a fee was not charged to participate in the trading, but Omidyar later added a nominal fee in order to cover the maintenance and expansion involved with the website.
 


From this point on eBay grew by leaps and bounds all on its own. The real secret of eBay’s success online was its ability to create a community of people that governed the buying and selling process by a feedback system. Ebay’s expanded service offerings were also a direct result of its users needs and wants. Most importantly, it leveled the playing field allowing ordinary people to compete with traditional retailers.
 


By 1996, Jeff Skoll joined the company when it began to turn a profit. Over the years eBay would enter into several licensing deals that helped further increase the website’s profitability. Two years following its creation, AuctionWeb’s name was officially changed to eBay. During this period, eBay was hosting over eight hundred thousand auctions on a daily basis. In 1998, Meg Whitman was brought in as President and CEO of eBay and continues to hold that position today. By 1998, the company was publicly offered and made Omidyar and Skoll instant billionaires, a mere three years after the company’s launch. It has been estimated that Omidyar’s eBay shares are worth over eight billion dollars.
 


Following the success of eBay, Omidyar would launch the Omidyar Network. This company invests in a multitude of different areas, including microfinance, technology and community based programs. In November 2005, Pierre Omidyar gave a $100 million endowment to the Omidyar-Tufts Microfinance Fund, the largest gift in the history of Tufts University. Omidyar has been quoted as saying, "You can make the world a better place and make money at the same time."

 

 

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