eBay

eBay was founded in September 1995 by Pierre Omidyar, who built the original AuctionWeb site from his home in California. The service, initially hosted within Omidyar's personal website, enabled people to list items and let buyers bid against one another online. One of its early famous sales was a broken laser pointer, purchased for $14.83; Omidyar reportedly contacted the buyer to confirm that he understood it was broken. AuctionWeb was renamed eBay in September 1997. Meg Whitman became chief executive in 1998, as the company expanded beyond collectibles and hobby goods into a broad consumer marketplace. eBay went public on Nasdaq in September 1998, using the ticker EBAY. eBay's model connected sellers with buyers rather than holding most inventory itself, and it collected fees for listings and completed transactions. The company added fixed-price purchasing alongside auctions, notably through the Buy It Now option. In 2002, eBay acquired PayPal, an online payments company founded by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and others. PayPal became closely integrated with eBay checkout and was later separated: eBay completed PayPal's spin-off as an independent public company in July 2015. eBay also bought Skype in 2005, but sold most of that business to an investor group in 2009; Microsoft subsequently acquired Skype in 2011. These transactions illustrate eBay's shifting strategy around commerce, payments, and communications. eBay's corporate headquarters are in San Jose, California, while its marketplace serves customers across numerous countries. The company acquired ticket marketplace StubHub in 2007 for about $310 million. In February 2020, eBay completed the sale of StubHub to Viagogo for approximately $4.05 billion in cash. That same year, Jamie Iannone became eBay's chief executive officer. eBay also agreed to sell its Classifieds Group to Adevinta; the deal closed in June 2021 and combined cash with an equity stake in Adevinta. The divestitures left eBay more concentrated on its core marketplace, where individuals and businesses sell new, used, collectible, refurbished, and pre-owned goods. eBay has continued developing managed payments, in which it handles payment processing on its platform rather than relying on PayPal as the primary checkout service. In 2021, it completed the transition of its marketplace to managed payments. Its public identity remains strongly associated with auctions, yet listings can generally be offered at auction, at a fixed price, or with both formats. The company's long-running feedback system lets participants leave ratings and comments after transactions, creating a visible public record.