eBay Inc.
Type Public (NASDAQ: EBAY)
Founded September 3, 1995
Founder Pierre Omidyar
Headquarters San Jose, California, United States
Area served Worldwide
Key people Pierre Omidyar, Chairman
John Donahoe, CEO
Lorrie Norrington, President of eBay Marketplaces
Industry Auctions
Products Online auction hosting, Electronic commerce, Shopping mall
PayPal, Skype, Gumtree, Kijiji,
Revenue ▲ $ 8.541 billion (2008)
Operating income $ 2.075 billion (2008)
Net income ▲ $ 1.779 billion (2008)[1]
Employees 15,500 (Q1 2008)
Slogan Come to think of it, eBay.
&
What ever it is, you can get it on eBay.
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Shop victoriously!
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From collectibles to cars, buy and sell all kinds of items on eBay
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Buy it, sell it, love it
Website www.ebay.com
List of domain names
Alexa rank 22
Type of site Online auction
Registration Required to buy and sell
Available in Multilingual
eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) manages an online auction and shopping website, where people buy and sell goods and services worldwide.
Origins and early history
Founded in San Jose on September 4, 1995 by Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll as Auctionweb, part of a larger personal site that included, among other things, Omidyar's own tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Ebola virus.
The first item sold was Omidyar's broken laser pointer for $14.83. Astonished, he contacted the winning bidder and asked, "did he not understand the laser pointer was broken?" Omidyar received the following email in reply: "I'm a collector of broken laser pointers." (The frequently repeated story that eBay was founded to help Omidyar's fiancee trade PEZ Candy dispensers was fabricated by a public relations manager in 1997 to interest the media. This was revealed in Adam Cohen's 2002 book and confirmed by eBay.)
It officially changed its name to eBay in September 1997. Originally, the site belonged to Echo Bay Technology Group, Omidyar's consulting firm. Omidyar had tried to register the domain name EchoBay.com but found it already taken by the Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, so he shortened it to his second choice, eBay.com.
This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.
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