A quick history of eBay
eBay is without a doubt the most famous example of an online auction site, and it has overseen billions of sales over the last quarter of a century, with it achieving true cult status in that time too. We’re pretty sure most of us would have used eBay at least once, whether that be to sell something, or buy things at a cut-price.
Here at Winzum we’re big fans, and there are various reasons why – you can check out our article on why eBay really is the best here [5 reasons why eBay is the best]. It’s always incredibly interesting to learn a bit about the history of innovative and successful companies like eBay, so we thought we’d do a bit of research ourselves. Standby for a quick history of eBay!
1995: The beginning of the eBay journey
eBay was originally called Auction Web, and was founded by a man called Pierre Omidyar. Funnily enough he was trying to sell a second-hand printer at the time, deciding to set up his own rudimentary auction site in order to do so. After the first week things didn’t look so good, but then the bids started to flood in.
In the end Omidyar sold the printer to a Canadian man called Mark Fraser for $14.83, little did they both know that this would become the first transaction of billions for the infant eBay platform.
1996: eBay makes its first million
Amazingly it only took one year after eBay’s initial inception for it to become a million dollar business, which is simple proof of how incredible and ground-breaking the idea was.
1996 was also the year that eBay got its first president, with Jeffrey Skoll being brought in to help the company grow even more profoundly.
1998: eBay becomes a public listed company
Over the next couple of years the company continued to grow at an astonishing rate, with the official moniker eBay being adopted in 1997. A new CEO called Meg Whitman took the eBay reins in 1998, overseeing a period of massive revenue growth, with the company hitting annual revenues of $5 million.
As a result it didn’t take long for eBay to become a publicly listed company, something that immediately resulted in thousands of shares being bought. This in turn made the founder Pierre Omidyar an overnight billionaire – not bad for a story that started with the sale of an old printer, eh?
2002: eBay merges with PayPal
The eBay train continued to steam along bringing an increasing amount of revenue for the online auction site, and in 2002 one of the most successful partnerships in modern business history was made with PayPal.
eBay’s part-acquisition of PayPal is valued at $1.5 billion, however this was a small price to pay for the huge impact it had. With PayPal on board the eBay user experience was massively streamlined, leading to more and more customers choosing to use the platform.
2018: eBay hits annual revenue of over $10 billion
In the decade and a half since eBay’s merger with PayPal that two companies have gone from strength to strength, with eBay in particular consolidating its position as the No. 1 online auction site in the world.
In 2018 annual revenue hit over $10 billion, a clear example of how incredible this company really is.