A Brief History of EBay

eBay began in San Jose, California, in September of 1995 as the brainchild of Pierre Omidyar. With a background in technology, Omidyar developed an interest in computing while still in high school in Washington, D.C. He received a computer science degree from Tufts University and went to work for Claris, an Apple subsidiary, where he helped write MacDraw.

Rumor has it that Omidyar was just messing around when the eBay concept came to him, trying to come up with a site where his girlfriend (now wife-lucky girl) could buy and sell her Pez dispensers. His dream was to have a Web site run much like the
stock market for people to buy and sell consumer goods. What a concept! He shopped it around to Silicon Valley's venture capital firms in the 1990s, and no one was interested. They believed that no one would buy merchandise from an unknown seller.

Omidyar's original site was called AuctionWeb. A section of that site was called Echo Bay Technology Group, and when Omidyar went to register that name, echobay.com was taken. He
decided to abbreviate it. "What about eBay?" he thought, and history was made!

In the beginning, Omidyar ran the company on his own from his apartment. Because he didn't have time to answer questions by phone, he created message boards that buyers and
sellers could use to communicate with one another and establish their reputations. These simple message boards grew into an elaborate way for collectors to connect, and they also established trust. Omidyar took this concept and turned it into the current feedback system that self-regulates how business is done on eBay.

eBay grew so quickly that Omidyar and his business partner, Jeff Skoll felt that it was spinning out of control. So, in 1997, they lured Meg Whitman away from her position at Hasbro's Preschool Division, where she was general manager. Whitman was the perfect choice to be this growing company's CEO and, in fact, much of eBay's success has been attributed to her.

Also in 1997, eBay finally got the venture capital it had been looking for, and officially changed its name from AuctionWeb to eBay and considered an IPO (Initial Public Offering). By 1998 eBay had gone public, which made Omidyar a billionaire. Omidyar and his wife Pam are now well-known philanthropists.

Over the years, other auction sites have sprung up to compete with eBay. Yahoo!, Amazon.com, and others have all tried to knock down the giant. Despite their efforts, eBay continues to have the lion's share of the market, although auction sites like ubid, Overstock and Yahoo! are still trying to grow market share.

Sellers like myself continue to sell on eBay because that is where the buyers are. As a result, eBay continues to dominate the marketplace, and people spend more time on eBay than any other online site, making it the most popular shopping destination on the Internet.