eBay (AuctionWeb)

Year: 1995
Creator: Pierre Omidyar
Company: eBay Inc.
Location: San Jose, California
Room: The Gold Rush ↗

Description

eBay is an online auction site that Pierre Omidyar opened on September 3, 1995, with the name AuctionWeb. Users list items, make bids, and rate each other in the Feedback Forum after each sale.

Importance

eBay showed that a website could run a marketplace without inventory or a sales force, because the users supplied the goods. Benchmark Capital invested in 1997, Meg Whitman became chief executive, and eBay sold its stock to the public in September 1998 at $18 a share. In 2002 eBay bought PayPal, which handled many payments for eBay auctions.

Interesting fact

Omidyar operated eBay as a sole proprietorship for its first eight months, and he incorporated it in California in May 1996.

Sources

How eBay Got Started ↗TIME (Lily Rothman) · 2015-09-03
eBay Inc. final IPO prospectus (Form 424B4) ↗U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · 1998-09-25
eBay and PayPal merger communication (Form 425) ↗U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · 2002-07-08