| You may be surprised to know that eBay was | | | | other instilling even more confidence in other users of |
| created 12 years ago or just about anyway. As of this | | | | the site. |
| writing that is less than a month away. The website, | | | | In 1997, Omidyar changed AuctionWeb's - and his |
| eBay was created by Pierre Omidyar in September | | | | company's - name to 'eBay', which is what users had |
| 1995. At the time he was living in San Jose, California, | | | | been calling the site for a long time anyway. Pierre |
| USA. It is said that Pierre wrote the code for eBay in | | | | spent a lot of money on advertising, and also |
| one weekend.eBay was a pioneer in several ways. | | | | redesigned the eBay logo. It was in this year also that |
| The original name of the site was actually | | | | eBay sold it's one-millionth item. |
| "AuctionWeb" and was part of a website called Echo | | | | In 1998 during the peak of the dotcom boom, eBay |
| Bay. It was not too long after the launch, that people | | | | became a big business. The money made available to |
| started calling the site eBay anyway. The first item | | | | internet investments during this era allowed eBay to |
| sold on eBay was Omidyar's broken laser pointer. The | | | | bring in senior managers and business strategists, who |
| managed to sell it for a whopping $14.00!eBay become | | | | took the company public. This started to encourage |
| immensely popular very quickly. Sellers came on the | | | | people to sell more than just collectibles, and eBay |
| site to list all sorts of oddities and more remarkably, | | | | quickly became a massive website, and a very large |
| buyers actually bought them. At first ebay operated on | | | | business. |
| the honor system as sellers and buyers seem to trust | | | | To this extent, you you could sell anything, large or |
| each other. This allowed Pierre to let the site almost | | | | small to anyone who could pay for it. Unlike many |
| run itself. | | | | other websites however, eBay survived the inevitable |
| From the outset, ebay was designed to collect a small | | | | dot com meltdown, and is still going strong today. |
| fee on each sale. This money was used by Omidyar | | | | In 1999, eBay expanded worldwide. It launched sites in |
| to pay for the expansion of the business. As the fees | | | | the UK, Australia and Germany, bought in 2000. was |
| quickly added up to more than his regular salary, Pierre | | | | an online retailer much like Amazon. In 2000 as well, |
| quit his job to concentrate his efforts full time on his | | | | eBay introduced Buy it Now. Ebay also purchased |
| website. In 1996 Pierre installed the feedback system | | | | PayPal, an online payment service, in 2002. |
| on ebay. This allowed buyers and sellers to rate each | | | | |