You might wonder where it all began, eBay that is. What spark lit the flame that ignited eBay into the success that it is today? Well, to find out, let's take a quick step back in time and follow the path of a man named Pierre Omidyar.
eBay was born in San Jose during September of 1995. But the site was NOT originally called eBay, as we know it today. eBay's birth name was 'AuctionWeb'. Pierre Omidyar wrote the first code for it in one weekend. Back then, not many people had thought to make an online auction website, so AuctionWeb was a pioneer of its time. The first item ever sold on AuctionWeb was Pierre's broken laser pointer. It sold for $14.
The site's popularity grew tremendously. The money that Pierre Omidyar collected from listing fees he sunk back into expanding the site. The more people that joined the site, the more money Pierre made, and he was eventually able to quit his job and began working on AuctionWeb full time.
In 1996 the feedback rating system was added to AuctionWeb. Up until this point, transactions between buyers and sellers were based on trust. Adding a feedback rating system made AuctionWeb a lot safer to use.
eBay didn't get a name change until 1997. The name 'eBay' comes from the domain name that the website was registered under ebay.com. By this point, pretty much everyone was called the site eBay instead of AuctionWeb anyways, so a name change for the website seemed the most logical thing to do. This same year, the one-millionth item was sold on eBay. What was the item, you're wondering? It was a toy version of Big Bird from Sesame Street.
In 1998 eBay went public on the stock market and by 1999 had gone worldwide. In the year 2000 eBay bought half.com and in 2002 bought PayPal. Purchasing PayPal meant a big increase in profits from the original eBay users. Not only are they charged fees from listing on eBay but they are also charged fees from PayPal.
Pierre Omidyar is still Chairman of the Board for eBay today. eBay is now almost as well known as McDonalds. Literally millions of items are bought and sold on eBay every day all across the world. It is estimated that 14% of the money spent online worldwide is spent on eBay. And it all started with one broken laser pointer.
