Ever Heard Of Ebay? By Bruce Moilan At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Hey, have you ever heard of eBay? I’m sure you have…everyone has! Founded in September of 1995, eBay is a global online marketplace where practically anyone can trade practically anything. It has dominated the online auction market and has a global presence in 39 markets. A few of these markets include Singapore, India, Germany, Australia, Ireland, Italy, Canada and Taiwan. There are thousands and thousands of different types of items that are currently up for auction on the site. eBay has approximately 276 million registered users worldwide that trade more than $2,039 worth of goods on the site every second…yes, I said every second!

eBay has hosted over 532,000 stores worldwide and has over 276 million registered users worldwide that trade in over 50,000 categories. eBay calculates that there were 637 million new listings added in Q4-07. At any given time, there are approximately 113 million listings worldwide, and approximately 6.7 million listings are added per day. Approximately 54 percent of eBay’s profit comes from international markets with the rest coming from the U.S.

The company that manages eBay is called eBay Inc. The company was founded in San Jose, California by a computer programmer of Iranian origin named Pierre Omidyar. From day one, Omidyar built eBay around what remains the company's core values; a belief that: People are basically good; Everyone has something to contribute; and, An open environment brings out the best in people. eBay implemented a feedback forum in 1997 and introduced the feedback “stars” in 1998. The process proved to be popular and it faithfully followed the company's core values.

With revenue topping $10,000 in June 1996, the company hired its first employee. Soon after, Jeff Skoll is hired as the first president of the company and Pierre Omidyar leaves his day job to work on eBay fulltime. eBay’s original name was AuctionWeb and this brand was officially retired in 1997. eBay was hosting more than 200,000 individual auctions per month, compared with 250,000 auctions in all of 1996. In 1998 Meg Whitman joined the company as President and CEO and that same year eBay went public.

In 2002 eBay made it’s first acquisition, PayPal. In 2005, eBay launched Kijiji, a local classifieds site available in nearly a dozen countries. In that same year, eBay acquired leading international classified advertising sites LoQuo and Gumtree and also purchased shopping.com and Skype. In 2007, eBay acquired online ticketing site Stub Hub (stubHub.com) and Stumble Upon (StumbleUpon.com). Stumble Upon helps surfers discover and share websites that are of interest to them.

According to eBay, based on Q4-07 GMV, the following categories delivered $1 billion or more in worldwide annualized GMV: eBay Motors at $17.2 billion; Consumer Electronics at $6.8 billion; Computers at $4.1 billion; Clothing and Accessories at $5.6 billion; Home & Garden at $4.1 billion; Collectibles at $2.9 billion; Books, Music and Movies at $3.3 billion; Sports at $2.9 billion; Business and Industrial at $2.3 billion: Toys at $2.7 billion; Jewelry and Watches at $2.5 billion; Cameras and Photo at $1.8 billion; Antiques and Art at $1.2 billion; Coins and Stamps at 1.2 billion and Tickets and Travel at $2 billion.

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