This article is about the online auction center. For the parody of "I Want It That Way", see eBay (song).
eBay Inc.

Type
Public (NASDAQ: EBAY)
Founded
San Jose, California, USA (September 3, 1995)
Headquarters
San Jose, California, USA
Key people
Meg Whitman, CEO & PresidentPierre Omidyar, Founder and ChairmanJohn Donahoe, Chief of eBay Marketplace
Industry
Auctions
Products
Online auction hosting, Electronic commerce, Shopping mallPayPal, Skype, Gumtree
Revenue
$5.969 billion USD (2006)
Employees
11,600 (Q1 2006)
Slogan
What ever it is, you can get it on eBay., and Shop victoriously!
The eBay homepage in Firefox
Website
www.ebay.comList of domain names
Type of site
online auction
Registration
required to buy and sold
Available language(s)
Multilingual
Launched
September 3, 1995

eBay headquarters in San Jose

eBay North First Street satellite office campus (home to PayPal)
eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) is an American Internet company that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell goods and services worldwide. In addition to its original U.S. website, eBay has established localized websites in several other countries. eBay Inc also owns PayPal, Skype, and other businesses.
Contents[hide]
1 Origins and early history
2 International
3 Items and services
3.1 eBay Express
3.2 eBay Blogs, eBay Community Wiki, eBay Mobile
4 Auction types
5 Bidding
6 Profit and transactions
7 Acquisitions and investments
8 Controversy and criticisms
8.1 Fraud
8.2 Other controversial practices of users
8.3 Stealing ebay accounts
8.4 Intellectual property in auctions
8.5 Customer support
8.6 Other eBay controversies
9 Prohibited or restricted Items
10 Unusual sale items
11 Charity auctions
12 See also
13 Notes and references
14 Further reading
15 External links
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Origins and early history
The online auction web site was founded in San Jose, California on September 3, 1995 by computer programmer Pierre Omidyar as AuctionWeb,[1] part of a larger personal site that included, among other things, Omidyar's own tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Ebola virus.[2]
The very first item sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer for $14.83. Astonished, Omidyar contacted the winning bidder and asked if he understood that the laser pointer was broken. In his responding email, the buyer explained: "I'm a collector of broken laser pointers."[3] The frequently repeated story that eBay was founded to help Omidyar's fiancée 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[2] and confirmed by eBay.
Chris Agarpao was hired as eBay's first employee and Jeffrey Skoll was hired as the first president of the company in 1996. In November 1996, eBay entered into its first third-party licensing deal, with a company called Electronic Travel Auction to use SmartMarket Technology to sell plane tickets and other travel products. The company officially changed the name of its service from AuctionWeb 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(this company's slogan is now "What eBay could have been.") but found it already taken by the Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, so he shortened it to his second choice, eBay.com. [4]
eBay went public in 1998, and both Omidyar and Skoll became instant billionaires.[3] The company purchased PayPal on October 14 2002.

International
In addition to its original U.S. website, eBay has established localized websites in several other countries:
Country/region
Website
Language
Launch date
Argentina
http://www.mercadolibre.com.ar/
Spanish
?
Australia
http://www.ebay.com.au/
English
01999-10 October 1999[5]
Austria
http://www.ebay.at/
German
02000-12-18 18 December 2000[6]
Belgium
http://www.ebay.be/
Dutch, French
?
Brazil
http://www.mercadolivre.com.br/
Portuguese
?
Canada
http://www.ebay.ca/
English, French
02000-04 April 2000[7]
China
http://www.ebay.com.cn/
Chinese
?
France
http://www.ebay.fr/
French
?
Germany
http://www.ebay.de/
German
?
Hong Kong
http://www.ebay.com.hk/
Chinese, English
02003-12-21 21 December 2003[8]
India
http://www.ebay.in/
English
?
Ireland
http://www.ebay.ie/
English
02001-03-29 29 March 2001[9]
Italy
http://www.ebay.it/
Italian
02001-01-15 15 January 2001[10]
Malaysia
http://www.ebay.com.my/
English
02004-12-01 1 December 2004[11]
Mexico
http://www.mercadolibre.com.mx/
Spanish
?
Netherlands
http://www.ebay.nl/
Dutch
?
New Zealand
http://pages.ebay.com/nz
English
02001-03-29 29 March 2001[9]
Philippines
http://www.ebay.ph/
English
02004-11-16 16 November 2004[12]
Poland
http://www.ebay.pl/
Polish
02005-04-22 22 April 2005[13]
Singapore
http://www.ebay.com.sg/
English
02001-10-24 24 October 2001[14]
South Korea
http://www.auction.co.kr/default.html
Korean
?
Spain
http://www.ebay.es/
Spanish
02002-01-08 8 January 2002[15]
Sweden
http://www.tradera.com/
Swedish
?
Switzerland
http://www.ebay.ch/
German, French
02001-03-29 29 March 2001[9]
Taiwan
http://www.ruten.com.tw/
Taiwanese
?
Turkey
http://www.gittigidiyor.com/
Turkish
?
United Kingdom
http://www.ebay.co.uk/
English
01999-10 October 1999[16]
United States
http://www.ebay.com/
English
01995-09-03 3 September 1995

Items and services
Millions of collectibles, appliances, computers, furniture, equipment, vehicles, and other miscellaneous items are listed, bought, and sold daily. In 2005, eBay launched its Business & Industrial category, breaking into the industrial surplus business. Some items are rare and valuable, while many others are dusty gizmos that would have been discarded if not for the thousands of eager bidders worldwide. Anything can be sold as long as it is not illegal or does not violate the eBay Prohibited and Restricted Items policy.[17] Services and intangibles can be sold, too. Large international companies, such as IBM, sell their newest products and offer services on eBay using competitive auctions and fixed-priced storefronts. Regional searches of the database make shipping slightly faster and cheaper. Separate eBay sites such as eBay US and eBay UK allow the users to trade using the local currency as an additional option to PayPal. Software developers can create applications that integrate with eBay through the eBay API by joining the eBay Developers Program.[18] As of June 2005, there were over 15,000 members in the eBay Developers Program, comprising a broad range of companies creating software applications to support eBay buyers and sellers as well as eBay Affiliates.
Controversy has arisen over certain items put up for bid. For instance, in late 1999 a man offered one of his kidneys for auction on eBay, attempting to profit from the potentially lucrative (and, in the United States, illegal) market for transplantable human organs. On other occasions, people and even entire towns have been listed, often as a joke or to garner free publicity. In general, the company removes auctions that violate its terms of service agreement within a short time after hearing of the auction from an outsider; the company's policy is to not pre-approve transactions. eBay is also an easy place for unscrupulous sellers to market counterfeit merchandise, which can be difficult for novice buyers to distinguish without careful studying of the auction description.
eBay's Latin American partner is MercadoLibre.
eBay's rivals include Amazon.com Marketplace.

eBay Express

In April of 2006, eBay opened its new eBay Express site, which is designed to work like a standard Internet shopping site to consumers with United States addresses (eBay Express). Selected eBay items are mirrored on eBay Express where buyers shop using a shopping cart to purchase from multiple sellers. The UK version was launched to eBay members in mid October 2006 (eBay Express UK), and differs from the US version by only offering brand new items from pre-vetted business sellers. The German version was also opened in 2006 (eBay Express Germany).
eBay Blogs, eBay Community Wiki, eBay Mobile
In June of 2006, eBay added an eBay Community Wiki and eBay Blogs to its Community Content which also includes the Discussion Boards, Groups, Answer Center, Chat Rooms, and Reviews & Guides. Ebay has a robust mobile offering, including SMS alerts, a WAP site, and J2ME clients, available in certain markets.

Auction types
eBay offers several types of auctions.
Auction-style listings allow the seller to offer one or more items for sale for a specified number of days. The seller can establish a reserve price.
Fixed Price format allows the seller to offer one or more items for sale at a Buy It Now price. Buyers who agree to pay that price win the auction immediately without submitting a bid.
Dutch Auctions allow the seller to offer two or more identical items in the same auction. Bidders can bid for any number from one item up to the total number offered.

Bidding
For Auction-style listings, the first bid must be at least the amount of the minimum bid set by the seller. Regardless of the amount the first bidder actually bids, until a second bid is made, eBay will then display the auction's minimum bid as the current high bid. After the first bid is made, each subsequent bid must be equal to at least the current highest bid displayed plus one bidding increment. The bidding increment is established by eBay based on the size of the current highest displayed bid. For example, when the current highest bid is less than or equal to $0.99, the bidding increment is $0.05; when the current highest bid is at least $1.00 but less than or equal to $4.99, the bidding increment is $0.25. Regardless of the amount each subsequent bidder bids, eBay will display the lesser of the bidder's actual bid and the amount equal to the previous highest bidder's actual bid plus one bidding increment. For example, suppose the current second-highest bid is $2.05 and the highest bid is $2.40. eBay will display the highest bid as $2.30, which equals the second-highest bid ($2.05) plus the bidding increment ($0.25). In this case, eBay will require the next bid to be at least $2.55, which equals the highest displayed bid ($2.30) plus one bidding increment ($0.25). The next bid will display as the actual amount bid or $2.65, whichever is less. The figure of $2.65 in this case comes from the then-second-highest actual bid of $2.40 plus the bidding increment of $0.25. The winning bidder pays the bid that eBay displays, not the amount actually bid. Following this example, if the next bidder is the final bidder, and bids $2.55, the winner pays $2.55, even though it is less than the second-highest bid ($2.40) plus one bidding increment ($0.25). However, if the next bidder is the final bidder and bids an arbitrarily large amount, for example $10.00 or even more, the winner pays $2.65, which equals the second-highest bid plus one bidding increment.
For Dutch Auctions, which are auctions of two or more identical items sold in one auction, each bidder enters both a bid and the number of items desired. Until the total number of items desired by all bidders equals the total number of items offered, bidders can bid any amount greater than or equal to the minimum bid. Once the total numbers of items desired by all bidders is greater than or equal to the total number offered, each bidder is required to bid one full bidding increment above the currently-displayed winning bid. All winning bidders pay the same lowest winning bid.
eBay has established detailed rules about bidding, retraction of bids, shill bidding (collusion to drive up the price), and other aspects of bidding. These rules can be viewed on the help pages.

Profit and transactions
eBay generates revenue from a number of fees. The eBay fee system is quite complex; there are fees to list a product and fees when the product sells, plus several optional fees, all based on various factors and scales. The U.S.-based ebay.com takes $0.20 to $80 per listing and 5.25% or less of the final price (as of 2007). The UK based ebay.co.uk (ebay.co.uk offices) takes from GBP £0.15 to a maximum rate of GBP £3 per 100 for an ordinary listing and from 0.75% to 5.25% of the final price. In addition, eBay now owns the PayPal payment system which has fees of its own.
Under current U.S. law, a state cannot require sellers located outside the state to collect a sales tax, making deals more attractive to buyers. Although state laws require purchasers to pay sales tax to their own states on out-of-state purchases, most people ignore this requirement.[citation needed]
The company's current business strategy includes increasing revenue by increasing international trade within the eBay system. eBay has already expanded to over two dozen countries including China and India. The only places where expansion failed were Taiwan and Japan, where Yahoo! had a head start.