eBay Online Auctions Channel
eBay Online Auctions
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 fiancee 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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