EBay
Encyclopedia
eBay Inc. is an American internet
consumer-to-consumer
corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction
and shopping website
in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide. Founded in 1995, eBay is one of the notable success stories of the dot-com bubble
; it is now a multi-billion dollar business with operations localized in over thirty countries. eBay expanded from its original "set-time" auction format to include "Buy It Now" standard shopping; shopping by UPC
, ISBN, or other kind of SKU
(via Half.com
); online classified advertisements (via Kijiji or eBay Classifieds
); online event ticket trading (via StubHub
); online money transfers (via PayPal
) and other services.
The online auction
website was founded as AuctionWeb in San Jose, California
, on September 3, 1995, by French-born Iran
ian-American computer programmer Pierre Omidyar
(born June 21, 1967) as part of a larger personal site that included, among other things, Omidyar's own tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Ebola virus
.
One of the first items sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer
for $14.83. Astonished, Omidyar contacted the winning bidder to ask if he understood that the laser pointer was broken. In his responding email, the buyer explained: "I'm a collector of broken laser pointers." 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, which were not interested in the company's previous explanation about wanting to create a "perfect market
". This was revealed in Adam Cohen's 2002 book, The Perfect Store, 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 early 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. Growth was phenomenal; in January 1997 the site hosted 2,000,000 auctions, compared with 250,000 during the whole of 1996. 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, but found it already taken by the Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, so he shortened it to his second choice, eBay.com.
In 1997, the company received $6.7 million in funding from the venture capital firm Benchmark Capital
.
Meg Whitman
was hired as eBay President and CEO in March 1998. At the time, the company had 30 employees, half a million users and revenues of $4.7 million in the United States.
eBay went public on September 21, 1998, and both Omidyar and Skoll became instant billionaires. eBay's target share price of $18 was all but ignored as the price went to $53.50 on the first day of trading.
As the company expanded product categories beyond collectibles into almost any saleable item, business grew quickly.
In February 2002, the company purchased IBazar, a similar European auction web site founded in 1995 and then bought PayPal
on October 14, 2002.
In early 2008, the company had expanded worldwide, counted hundreds of millions of registered users, 15,000+ employees and revenues of almost $7.7 billion. After nearly ten years at eBay, Whitman made the decision to enter politics. On January 23, 2008 the company announced that Whitman would step down on March 31, 2008 and John Donahoe
was selected to become President and CEO. Whitman remained on the Board of Directors and continued to advise Donahoe through 2008. In late 2009, eBay completed the sale of Skype
for $2.75 billion, but will still own 30% equity in the company.
In July 2010, eBay was sued for $3.8 billion by XPRT Ventures that accused eBay of stealing information shared in confidence by the inventors on XPRT's own patents, and incorporated it into features in its own payment systems, such as PayPal Pay Later and PayPal Buyer Credit.
On December 20, 2010, eBay announced its acquisition of a German online shopping club, brands4friends.de, for €150 million ($197 million) to strengthen the company's interests in the fashion industry in Europe. It is subject to regulatory approval and expected to close it in the Q1 2011.
, appliances
, computer
s, furnishings
, equipment
, domain name
s, vehicle
s, and other miscellaneous items are listed, bought, or sold daily on eBay. In 2006, eBay launched its Business & Industrial category, breaking into the industrial surplus business. Generally, anything can be auctioned on the site as long as it is not illegal and does not violate the eBay Prohibited and Restricted Items policy. 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. Separate eBay sites such as eBay US and eBay UK allow the users to trade using the local currency. Software developers can create applications that integrate with eBay through the eBay API
by joining the eBay Developers Program. In June 2005, there were more than 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 kidney
s 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.
Beginning in August 2007, eBay required listings in "Video Games" and "Health & Beauty" to accept its payment system PayPal
and sellers could only accept PayPal for payments in the category "Video Games: Consoles". Starting January 10, 2008, eBay said sellers can only accept PayPal as payment for the categories "Computing > Software", "Consumer Electronics > MP3 Players", "Wholesale & Job Lots > Mobile & Home Phones", and "Business, Office & Industrial > Industrial Supply / MRO". eBay announced that starting in March 2008, eBay had added to this requirement that all sellers with fewer than 100 feedbacks must offer PayPal and no merchant account
may be used as an alternative. This is in addition to the requirement that all sellers from the United Kingdom have to offer PayPal.
Further, and as noted below, it was a requirement to offer Paypal on all listings in Australia and the UK. In response to concerns expressed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, however, eBay has since removed the policy on the ebay.com.au website requiring sellers to offer PayPal as a payment option.
alerts, a WAP
site, Java ME clients, an Android OS application and an Apple iPhone application available in certain markets.
Best of eBay is a specialty site for finding the most-unusual items on the eBay site. Users can vote on and nominate listings that they find.
ding and is essentially equivalent to a Vickrey auction
, with the following exceptions.
In a reversal of roles, on January 24, 2010 Auctionbytes.com held an open survey in which sellers could effectively rate eBay itself, as well as competing auction and marketplace sites. In the survey, users were asked to rank 15 sites based on five criteria:
After the results were published, eBay had finished 13th overall, edged out by established sites such as Amazon
and Craigslist
, as well as lesser-known upstarts like Atomic Mall
and Ruby Lane
. In individual category rankings, eBay was rated the worst of all the 15 sites on Customer Service and Communication, and average on Ease of Use. A number of respondents said they would have given eBay a rating of ten 3 to 5 years ago. eBay was rated twelfth out of fifteen in the Recommended Selling Venue category.
£0.15 to a maximum rate of GBP
£3 per £100 for an ordinary listing and from 0.75 percent to 10% (writing as of June 2009) percent of the final price. Reduced FVF's are available to business registered customers. In addition, eBay owns the PayPal
payment system that 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 some state laws require purchasers to pay sales tax to their own states on out-of-state purchases, it is not a common practice. However, most sellers that operate as a full time business do follow state tax regulations on their eBay transactions. However Value Added Tax
(VAT), a form of sales tax in EU countries, eBay requires sellers to include the VAT element in their listing price and not as an add-on and thus eBay profits by collecting fees based on what governments tax for VAT; i.e. it not only receives fees as a percentage of the sale (net) price but also a similar percentage of the VAT element of the overall (gross) price.
The company's current business strategy includes increasing international trade. 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, and New Zealand where TradeMe
, owned by the Fairfax
media group is the dominant online auction website.
A more recent strategy involves the company increasingly leveraging the relationship between the eBay auction site and PayPal: The impact of driving buyers and sellers to use PayPal means not only does eBay turn buyers into clients (as a pure auction venue its clients used to be predominantly sellers) but for each new PayPal registration it achieves via the eBay auction site it also earns offsite revenue when the resulting PayPal account is used in non-eBay transactions. In its Q1 2008 results, total payment volume via PayPal increased 17 percent, but off the eBay auction site it was up 61 percent.
For most listing categories, eBay sellers are permitted to offer a variety of payment systems such as PayPal
, Paymate
, ProPay
, and Moneybookers
.
eBay runs an affiliate program under the name eBay Partner Network. eBay affiliate marketers were originally paid a percentage of the eBay seller's transaction fees, with commissions ranging from 50% to 75% of the fees paid for an item purchased. In October 2009, eBay changed to an affiliate payout system that it calls Quality Click Pricing, in which affiliates are paid an amount determined by an undisclosed algorithm. The total earnings amount is then divided by the number of clicks the affiliate sent to eBay and is reported as Earnings Per Click, or EPC.
, its policy of requiring sellers to use PayPal
, and concerns over forgeries and intellectual property violations in auction items.
sea urchin
military vehicles, and items of food.
as an arbiter, eBay allows sellers to donate a portion of their auction proceeds to a charity of the seller's choice. The program is called eBay Giving Works in the US, and eBay for Charity in the UK. eBay provides a partial refund of seller fees for items sold through charity auctions. As of March 4, 2010, $154 million has been raised for U.S. nonprofits by the eBay Community since eBay Giving Works began in 2003.
Some high-profile charity auctions have been advertised on the eBay home page, and have raised large amounts of money in a short time. For example, a furniture manufacturer raised over $35,000 for Ronald McDonald House
by auctioning off beds that had been signed by celebrities.
To date the highest successful bid on a single item for charity was for the annual "Power Lunch" with investor Warren Buffett
at the famous Smith & Wollensky Steakhouse in New York. The winning bid was $2.63 million with all of the proceeds going to the Glide Foundation
. At the time of writing, the winning bidder is still not publicly known, but they will be able to bring up to seven friends to the lunch.
The previous highest successful bid on a single item for charity was for a letter sent to Mark P. Mays, CEO of Clear Channel
(parent company of Premiere Radio Networks
the production company that produces The Rush Limbaugh Show
and Glenn Beck Program
) by Senator Harry Reid
and forty other Democratic
senators, complaining about comments made by conservative
talk show host Rush Limbaugh
. The winning bid was $2,100,100, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, benefiting the education of children of men and women who have died serving in the armed forces. The winning bid was matched by Limbaugh in his largest charity donation to date.
In 2007, eBay Canada partnered with Montreal-based digital branding agency CloudRaker
to develop a campaign to raise money for Sainte-Justine children's hospital in Montreal. They aligned themselves with internet phenomenon Têtes à claques
to create an eBay auction based on popular T-A-C character Uncle Tom, an infomercial host who pitches absurd products. eBay and CloudRaker
reproduced Uncle Tom's imaginary products, The Body Toner Fly Swatter, The Willi Waller Potato Peeler, and the LCD Shovel and sold them online. In 6 weeks, they raised $15,000 for Hôpital St-Justine with one fly swatter, one potato peeler, and one shovel, a world record. The Body Toner Fly Swatter sold for $8,600, the Willi Waller Potato Peeler sold for $3,550, and the LCD Shovel sold for $2,146.21.
Gold standards. The building, the first the company has built new in its 13-year existence, uses an array of 3,248 solar panels, spanning 60000 square feet (5,574.2 m²), and providing 650 kilowatts of power to eBay's campus. All told the array can supply the company with 15-18 percent of its total energy requirements, reducing the amount of greenhouse gas
es that would be produced to create that energy by other means. SolarCity
, the company responsible for designing the array, estimates that the solar panels installed on eBay's campus will prevent 37 million pounds of carbon dioxide
from being released into the environment as a result of replaced power production over the next three decades. Creating an equivalent impact to remove the same amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would require planting 322 acres (1.3 km²) of trees. The design of the building also incorporates other elements to reduce its impact on the environment. The building is equipped with a lighting system that detects natural ambient light sources and automatically dims artificial lighting to save 39 percent of the power usually required to light an office building. eBay's newest building also reduces demand on local water supplies by incorporating an eco-friendly irrigation system, low-flow shower heads, and low-flow faucets. Even during construction, more than 75 percent of the waste from construction was recycled. eBay also runs buses between San Francisco and the San Jose campus to reduce the number of commuting vehicles.
. Former Craigslist executive Phillip Knowlton was the seller, and he insisted that his former employer was aware of his plans to divest his holdings. Initially, eBay assured Craigslist that they would not ask the company to change the way it does business. eBay spokesman Hani Durzy stated that the "investment was really for learning purposes; it gives us access to learn how the classified market online works."
The classifieds service Kijiji
was launched by eBay in March 2005. In April 2008, eBay sued Craigslist to "safeguard its four-year financial investment", claiming that in January 2008, Craigslist took actions that "unfairly diluted eBay's economic interest by more than 10%." Craigslist countersued in May 2008 "to remedy the substantial and ongoing harm to fair competition" that Craigslist claims is constituted by eBay's actions as a Craigslist shareholder. In September 2010, Delaware Judge William Chandler ruled that the actions of Craigslist were unlawful, and that the actions taken by Craigslist founders Jim Buckmaster and Craig Newmark had "breached their fiduciary duty of loyalty", and restored eBay's stake in the company to 28.4% from a diluted level of 24.85%. However, the judge dismissed eBay's objection to a staggered board provision citing that Craigslist has the right to protect its own trade secrets. eBay spokesman Michael Jacobson stated "We are very pleased that the court gave eBay what it sought from the lawsuit."
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
consumer-to-consumer
Consumer-to-consumer
Consumer-to-consumer electronic commerce involves the electronically facilitated transactions between consumers through some third party. A common example is the online auction, in which a consumer posts an item for sale and other consumers bid to purchase it; the third party generally charges a...
corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction
Online auction business model
The online auction business model is one in which participants bid for products and services over the Internet. The functionality of buying and selling in an auction format is made possible through auction software which regulates the various processes involved.Several types of online auctions are...
and shopping website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide. Founded in 1995, eBay is one of the notable success stories of the dot-com bubble
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
; it is now a multi-billion dollar business with operations localized in over thirty countries. eBay expanded from its original "set-time" auction format to include "Buy It Now" standard shopping; shopping by UPC
Universal Product Code
The Universal Product Code is a barcode symbology , that is widely used in North America, and in countries including the UK, Australia, and New Zealand for tracking trade items in stores. Its most common form, the UPC-A, consists of 12 numerical digits, which are uniquely assigned to each trade item...
, ISBN, or other kind of SKU
Stock Keeping Unit
→A stock-keeping unit or SKU is a number or code used to identify each unique product or item for sale in a store or other business.It is a unique identifier for each distinct product and service that can be purchased...
(via Half.com
Half.com
Half.com is a subsidiary of eBay, in which sellers offer items at fixed prices, usually items that have a UPC, ISBN or other kind of SKU, rather than rare, old or collectible items...
); online classified advertisements (via Kijiji or eBay Classifieds
Kijiji
Kijiji is a centralized network of online urban communities for posting local online classified advertisements. It is a subsidiary of eBay launched in March 2005. Kijiji websites are currently available for more than 300 cities in Germany. Further Kijiji countries and regions are Canada, France,...
); online event ticket trading (via StubHub
Stubhub
StubHub is an online marketplace owned by eBay, which provides services for buyers and sellers of tickets for sports, concerts, theater and other live entertainment events....
); online money transfers (via PayPal
PayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
) and other services.
Origins and history
Online auction business model
The online auction business model is one in which participants bid for products and services over the Internet. The functionality of buying and selling in an auction format is made possible through auction software which regulates the various processes involved.Several types of online auctions are...
website was founded as AuctionWeb in San Jose, California
San Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
, on September 3, 1995, by French-born Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian-American computer programmer Pierre Omidyar
Pierre Omidyar
Pierre Morad Omidyar is a French-Iranian American entrepreneur and philanthropist/economist, and the founder/chairman of the eBay auction site...
(born June 21, 1967) as part of a larger personal site that included, among other things, Omidyar's own tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Ebola virus
Ebola virus
Ebola virus causes severe disease in humans and in nonhuman primates in the form of viral hemorrhagic fever. EBOV is a Select Agent, World Health Organization Risk Group 4 Pathogen , National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Category A Priority Pathogen,...
.
One of the first items sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer
Laser pointer
A laser pointer or laser pen is a small portable device with a power source and a laser emitting a very narrow coherent low-powered beam of visible light, intended to be used to highlight something of interest by illuminating it with a small bright spot of colored light...
for $14.83. Astonished, Omidyar contacted the winning bidder to ask if he understood that the laser pointer was broken. In his responding email, the buyer explained: "I'm a collector of broken laser pointers." The frequently repeated story that eBay was founded to help Omidyar's fiancée trade Pez
PEZ
Pez is the brand name of an Austrian confectionery and the mechanical pocket dispensers for the same...
candy dispensers was fabricated by a public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
manager in 1997 to interest the media, which were not interested in the company's previous explanation about wanting to create a "perfect market
Perfect market
In economics, a perfect market is defined by several conditions, collectively called perfect competition. Among these conditions are* Perfect market information* No participant with market power to set prices* No barriers to entry or exit...
". This was revealed in Adam Cohen's 2002 book, The Perfect Store, and confirmed by eBay.
Chris Agarpao was hired as eBay's first employee and Jeffrey Skoll
Jeffrey Skoll
Jeffrey Skoll is a Canadian-born engineer and internet entrepreneur who lives in Los Angeles, California. With an estimated net worth of $US 3.2 billion , Skoll was ranked by Forbes as the 7th wealthiest Canadian and 347th in the world.He was the first employee and also first president of internet...
was hired as the first president of the company in early 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. Growth was phenomenal; in January 1997 the site hosted 2,000,000 auctions, compared with 250,000 during the whole of 1996. 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, but found it already taken by the Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, so he shortened it to his second choice, eBay.com.
In 1997, the company received $6.7 million in funding from the venture capital firm Benchmark Capital
Benchmark Capital
Benchmark Capital is a venture capital firm responsible for the early stage funding of some very successful startups. In 1997, the firm invested $6.7 million in eBay, which became worth more than $5 billion by the spring of 1999. Other high-profile investments include Ariba, Juniper Networks, Red...
.
Meg Whitman
Meg Whitman
Margaret Cushing "Meg" Whitman is an American business executive. She is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett-Packard. A native of Long Island, New York, she is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School...
was hired as eBay President and CEO in March 1998. At the time, the company had 30 employees, half a million users and revenues of $4.7 million in the United States.
eBay went public on September 21, 1998, and both Omidyar and Skoll became instant billionaires. eBay's target share price of $18 was all but ignored as the price went to $53.50 on the first day of trading.
As the company expanded product categories beyond collectibles into almost any saleable item, business grew quickly.
In February 2002, the company purchased IBazar, a similar European auction web site founded in 1995 and then bought PayPal
PayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
on October 14, 2002.
In early 2008, the company had expanded worldwide, counted hundreds of millions of registered users, 15,000+ employees and revenues of almost $7.7 billion. After nearly ten years at eBay, Whitman made the decision to enter politics. On January 23, 2008 the company announced that Whitman would step down on March 31, 2008 and John Donahoe
John Donahoe
John Donahoe is an American businessman and the President and CEO of eBay Inc. since March 31, 2008, succeeding Meg Whitman, who stepped down from the role after 10 years, and who continues to serve on the company's Board of Directors....
was selected to become President and CEO. Whitman remained on the Board of Directors and continued to advise Donahoe through 2008. In late 2009, eBay completed the sale of Skype
Skype
Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system...
for $2.75 billion, but will still own 30% equity in the company.
In July 2010, eBay was sued for $3.8 billion by XPRT Ventures that accused eBay of stealing information shared in confidence by the inventors on XPRT's own patents, and incorporated it into features in its own payment systems, such as PayPal Pay Later and PayPal Buyer Credit.
On December 20, 2010, eBay announced its acquisition of a German online shopping club, brands4friends.de, for €150 million ($197 million) to strengthen the company's interests in the fashion industry in Europe. It is subject to regulatory approval and expected to close it in the Q1 2011.
Items
Millions of collectibles, decorInterior design
Interior design describes a group of various yet related projects that involve turning an interior space into an effective setting for the range of human activities are to take place there. An interior designer is someone who conducts such projects...
, appliances
Home appliance
Home appliances are electrical/mechanical machines which accomplish some household functions, such as cooking or cleaning. Home appliances can be classified into:*Major appliances, or White goods*Small appliances, or Brown goods...
, computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s, furnishings
Furniture
Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
, equipment
Tool
A tool is a device that can be used to produce an item or achieve a task, but that is not consumed in the process. Informally the word is also used to describe a procedure or process with a specific purpose. Tools that are used in particular fields or activities may have different designations such...
, domain name
Domain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
s, vehicle
Vehicle
A vehicle is a device that is designed or used to transport people or cargo. Most often vehicles are manufactured, such as bicycles, cars, motorcycles, trains, ships, boats, and aircraft....
s, and other miscellaneous items are listed, bought, or sold daily on eBay. In 2006, eBay launched its Business & Industrial category, breaking into the industrial surplus business. Generally, anything can be auctioned on the site as long as it is not illegal and does not violate the eBay Prohibited and Restricted Items policy. Services and intangibles
Intangible asset
Intangible assets are defined as identifiable non-monetary assets that cannot be seen, touched or physically measured, which are created through time and/or effort and that are identifiable as a separate asset...
can be sold, too. Large international companies, such as IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, sell their newest products and offer services on eBay using competitive auctions and fixed-priced storefronts. Separate eBay sites such as eBay US and eBay UK allow the users to trade using the local currency. Software developers can create applications that integrate with eBay through the eBay API
EBay API
The eBay API is the heart of the an Application programming interface for interacting directly with the eBay database. The communication occurs over the Internet with in the XML format...
by joining the eBay Developers Program. In June 2005, there were more than 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 kidney
Kidney
The kidneys, organs with several functions, serve essential regulatory roles in most animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are essential in the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and...
s for auction on eBay, attempting to profit from the potentially lucrative (and, in the United States, illegal) market for transplantable human organs
Organ transplant
Organ transplantation is the moving of an organ from one body to another or from a donor site on the patient's own body, for the purpose of replacing the recipient's damaged or absent organ. The emerging field of regenerative medicine is allowing scientists and engineers to create organs to be...
. 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
Terms of Service
Terms of service are rules which one must agree to abide by in order to use a service. Unless in violation of consumer protection laws, such terms are usually legally binding...
agreement.
PayPal-only categories
PayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
and sellers could only accept PayPal for payments in the category "Video Games: Consoles". Starting January 10, 2008, eBay said sellers can only accept PayPal as payment for the categories "Computing > Software", "Consumer Electronics > MP3 Players", "Wholesale & Job Lots > Mobile & Home Phones", and "Business, Office & Industrial > Industrial Supply / MRO". eBay announced that starting in March 2008, eBay had added to this requirement that all sellers with fewer than 100 feedbacks must offer PayPal and no merchant account
Merchant account
A merchant account is a type of bank account that allows businesses to accept payments by debit or credit cards. A merchant account is established under an agreement between an acceptor and a merchant acquiring bank for the settlement of credit card and/or debit card transactions...
may be used as an alternative. This is in addition to the requirement that all sellers from the United Kingdom have to offer PayPal.
Further, and as noted below, it was a requirement to offer Paypal on all listings in Australia and the UK. In response to concerns expressed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, however, eBay has since removed the policy on the ebay.com.au website requiring sellers to offer PayPal as a payment option.
eBay Express
In April 2006, eBay opened its new eBay Express site, which was designed to work like a standard Internet shopping site for consumers with United States addresses. It closed in 2008. Selected eBay items were mirrored on eBay Express, where buyers shopped using a shopping cart to purchase from multiple sellers. The UK version was launched to eBay members in mid-October 2006 but on January 29, 2008 eBay announced its intention to close the site. The German version, eBay Express Germany, was also opened in 2006 and closed in 2008.Selling Manager Applications
At the 2008 eBay Developer's Conference, eBay announced the Selling Manager Applications program (SM Apps). The program allows approved developers to integrate their applications directly into the eBay.com interface. The applications created by developers are available for subscription by eBay members who also subscribe to Selling Manager.eBay specialty sites
eBay maintains a number of specialty sites. eBay Pulse, for example, provides information about popular search terms, trends, and most-watched items. Other ebay Community Content includes the Discussion Boards, Groups, Answer Center, Chat Rooms, and Reviews & Guides. eBay has a robust mobile offering, including SMSShort message service
Short Message Service is a text messaging service component of phone, web, or mobile communication systems, using standardized communications protocols that allow the exchange of short text messages between fixed line or mobile phone devices...
alerts, a WAP
Wireless Application Protocol
Wireless Application Protocol is a technical standard for accessing information over a mobile wireless network.A WAP browser is a web browser for mobile devices such as mobile phones that uses the protocol.Before the introduction of WAP, mobile service providers had limited opportunities to offer...
site, Java ME clients, an Android OS application and an Apple iPhone application available in certain markets.
Best of eBay is a specialty site for finding the most-unusual items on the eBay site. Users can vote on and nominate listings that they find.
Auction types
eBay.com 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 priceReservation priceIn microeconomics, the reservation price is the highest price a buyer is willing to pay for goods or a service; or; the smallest price at which a seller is willing to sell a good or service...
. - 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.
- Fixed price format with best offer allows the seller to accept best offers. If a buyer submits a best offer, the seller either rejects or accepts the best offer. If the best offer is not satisfactory, a seller may submit a counter offer to the buyer. Best offer is not available for auction style listings. In addition, best offer is not available in every category. Sellers also meet specific requirements in order to sell with best offer.
Auction-style listings
Bidding on eBay's auction-style listings is called proxy bidProxy bid
Proxy bidding is an implementation of an English second-price auction used on eBay, in which the winning bidder pays the price of the second-highest bid plus a defined increment. It differs from a Vickrey auction in that bids are not sealed; the "current highest bid" is always displayed...
ding and is essentially equivalent to a Vickrey auction
Vickrey auction
A Vickrey auction is a type of sealed-bid auction, where bidders submit written bids without knowing the bid of the other people in the auction, and in which the highest bidder wins, but the price paid is the second-highest bid. The auction was created by William Vickrey...
, with the following exceptions.
- The winning bidder pays the second-highest bid plus one bid increment amount (i.e., some small predefined amount relative to the bid size), instead of simply the second-highest bid. However, since the bid increment amounts are relatively insignificant compared to the bid size, they are not considered from a strategic standpoint.
- The current winning bid is not sealed, but instead is always displayed. However, at any given moment, the highest bidder's bid is not necessarily displayed, since this amount may be higher than the amount required to win the auction.
Example of bidding on an auction-style listing
Suppose bidding for an item placed by Anne starts at $1.00 and that the bid increment amount in this price range is $.25. Eric bids $3.00 for the item, and since no one else has bid yet, eBay displays that the current highest bid is Eric's, with a bid of $1.00, and that the minimum allowable bid is $1.25, which is equal to one bidding increment above the winning bid. Suppose then that Bob bids $2.00 for the item. Since Eric has already bid more than Bob, eBay will display that the current highest bid is Eric's, with a bid of $2.25, which equals the second-highest bid ($2.00) plus the bid increment amount ($.25). Again, eBay will also display that the minimum allowable bid is $2.50, one bid increment above the highest bid. Suppose that Bob bids again, this time at $2.75. Again, since Eric's bid is higher than Bob's, eBay will display that the current highest bidder is Eric, with a bid of $3.00, which is equal to the second-highest bid ($2.75) plus the bid increment ($.25). eBay will also display that the minimum allowable bid is $3.25, one bidding increment above the current highest bid. Suppose Bob bids one more time, at $10.00. Since Bob's bid is now higher than Eric's, eBay will display that the current potentially winning bidder is Bob, with a bid of $3.25, which is equal to the second-highest bid ($3.00) plus the bid increment ($.25). If Bob were to win the auction, he would have to pay the amount equal to the winning bid ($3.25), even though his previous bid was much larger than that.Seller ratings
In 2007, eBay began using detailed seller ratings with four different categories. When leaving feedback, buyers are asked to rate the seller in each of these categories with a score of one to five stars, with five being the highest rating and one the lowest. Unlike the overall feedback rating, these ratings are anonymous; neither sellers nor other users learn how individual buyers rated the seller. The listings of sellers with a rating of 4.3 or below in any of the four rating categories appear lower in search results. Power Sellers are required to have scores in each category above 4.5.In a reversal of roles, on January 24, 2010 Auctionbytes.com held an open survey in which sellers could effectively rate eBay itself, as well as competing auction and marketplace sites. In the survey, users were asked to rank 15 sites based on five criteria:
- Profitability
- Customer Service
- Communication
- Ease of Use
- Recommendation
After the results were published, eBay had finished 13th overall, edged out by established sites such as Amazon
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
and Craigslist
Craigslist
Craigslist is a centralized network of online communities featuring free online classified advertisements, with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services, community, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums....
, as well as lesser-known upstarts like Atomic Mall
Atomic Mall
-Overview:Atomic Mall is a multi-seller online marketplace based in Yakima, Washington. It was launched in July 2008 by founder Mike Shannon, who had previously worked as an independent software publisher and distributor, and had developed and operated private ecommerce sites in the retail sector...
and Ruby Lane
Ruby Lane
Ruby Lane is an online retail marketplace for antiques, collectibles, art and jewelry. The company was founded in 1998, is based in San Francisco, California, United States and is privately held.-Business profile:...
. In individual category rankings, eBay was rated the worst of all the 15 sites on Customer Service and Communication, and average on Ease of Use. A number of respondents said they would have given eBay a rating of ten 3 to 5 years ago. eBay was rated twelfth out of fifteen in the Recommended Selling Venue category.
Profit and transactions
eBay generates revenue from various fees. The eBay fee system is quite complex; there are fees to list a product and fees when the product sells (Final Value Fee), plus several optional adornment fees, all based on various factors and scales. The U.S.-based eBay.com takes $0.10 to $4 (based on the opening price) for a basic listing without any adornments and 8.75% (12% for some categories, e.g. Clothing & Accessories) of the final price (as of May 2009). The UK based ebay.co.uk takes from GBPPound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
£0.15 to a maximum rate of GBP
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
£3 per £100 for an ordinary listing and from 0.75 percent to 10% (writing as of June 2009) percent of the final price. Reduced FVF's are available to business registered customers. In addition, eBay owns the PayPal
PayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
payment system that has fees of its own.
Under current U.S. law, a state cannot require sellers located outside the state to collect a sales tax
Sales tax
A sales tax is a tax, usually paid by the consumer at the point of purchase, itemized separately from the base price, for certain goods and services. The tax amount is usually calculated by applying a percentage rate to the taxable price of a sale....
, making deals more attractive to buyers. Although some state laws require purchasers to pay sales tax to their own states on out-of-state purchases, it is not a common practice. However, most sellers that operate as a full time business do follow state tax regulations on their eBay transactions. However Value Added Tax
Value added tax
A value added tax or value-added tax is a form of consumption tax. From the perspective of the buyer, it is a tax on the purchase price. From that of the seller, it is a tax only on the "value added" to a product, material or service, from an accounting point of view, by this stage of its...
(VAT), a form of sales tax in EU countries, eBay requires sellers to include the VAT element in their listing price and not as an add-on and thus eBay profits by collecting fees based on what governments tax for VAT; i.e. it not only receives fees as a percentage of the sale (net) price but also a similar percentage of the VAT element of the overall (gross) price.
The company's current business strategy includes increasing international trade. 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!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
had a head start, and New Zealand where TradeMe
TradeMe
Trade Me is the largest Internet-auction website operating in New Zealand. Managed by Trade Me Ltd the site was founded in 1999 by New Zealand entrepreneurSam Morgan who sold it to Fairfax in 2006 for NZ$700 million...
, owned by the Fairfax
Fairfax Media
Fairfax Media Limited is one of Australia's largest diversified media companies. The group's operations include newspapers, magazines, radios and digital media operating in Australia and New Zealand. Fairfax Media was founded by the Fairfax family as John Fairfax and Sons, later to become John...
media group is the dominant online auction website.
A more recent strategy involves the company increasingly leveraging the relationship between the eBay auction site and PayPal: The impact of driving buyers and sellers to use PayPal means not only does eBay turn buyers into clients (as a pure auction venue its clients used to be predominantly sellers) but for each new PayPal registration it achieves via the eBay auction site it also earns offsite revenue when the resulting PayPal account is used in non-eBay transactions. In its Q1 2008 results, total payment volume via PayPal increased 17 percent, but off the eBay auction site it was up 61 percent.
For most listing categories, eBay sellers are permitted to offer a variety of payment systems such as PayPal
PayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
, Paymate
Paymate
rightPaymate is a US online payments facilitator which started operations in Australia during October 2001. The service is similar in outcomes to PayPal but credits funds directly to the recipient's bank account...
, ProPay
ProPay
ProPay, Inc is an American financial services company headquartered in Lehi, UT. The company provides payment solutions that include merchant accounts, payment processing, ACH services, pre-paid cards and other payment-related products. ProPay also provides end-to-end encryption and tokenization...
, and Moneybookers
Moneybookers
Moneybookers is an e-commerce business that allows payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. It serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as cheques and money orders. Moneybookers performs payment processing for websites, online auction sites, and...
.
eBay runs an affiliate program under the name eBay Partner Network. eBay affiliate marketers were originally paid a percentage of the eBay seller's transaction fees, with commissions ranging from 50% to 75% of the fees paid for an item purchased. In October 2009, eBay changed to an affiliate payout system that it calls Quality Click Pricing, in which affiliates are paid an amount determined by an undisclosed algorithm. The total earnings amount is then divided by the number of clicks the affiliate sent to eBay and is reported as Earnings Per Click, or EPC.
Economics
As eBay is a huge, publicly visible market, it has created a great deal of interest from economists, who have used it to analyze many aspects of buying and selling behavior, auction formats, etc., and compare these with previous theoretical and empirical findings.Controversy and criticism
eBay has its share of controversy, including cases of fraudFraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
, its policy of requiring sellers to use PayPal
PayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
, and concerns over forgeries and intellectual property violations in auction items.
Prohibited or restricted items
In its earliest days, eBay was essentially unregulated. However, as the site grew, it became necessary to restrict or forbid auctions for various items. Note that some of the restrictions relate to eBay.com (the U.S. site), while other restrictions apply to specific European sites (such as Nazi paraphernalia). Regional laws and regulations may apply to the seller or the buyer. Generally, if the sale or ownership of an item is regulated or prohibited by one or more states, eBay will not permit its listing. Among the hundred or so banned or restricted categories:- TobaccoTobaccoTobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
(tobacco-related items and collectibles are accepted.) - AlcoholAlcoholic beverageAn alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...
(alcohol-related collectibles, including sealed containers, as well as some wine sales by licensed sellers are allowed, some sites such as ebay.com.au allow licensed liquor sales) - DrugsProhibition (drugs)The prohibition of drugs through sumptuary legislation or religious law is a common means of attempting to prevent drug use. Prohibition of drugs has existed at various levels of government or other authority from the Middle Ages to the present....
and drug paraphernalia - NaziNazismNazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
paraphernalia - Bootleg recordingBootleg recordingA bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. The process of making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging...
s - FirearmFirearmA firearm is a weapon that launches one, or many, projectile at high velocity through confined burning of a propellant. This subsonic burning process is technically known as deflagration, as opposed to supersonic combustion known as a detonation. In older firearms, the propellant was typically...
s and ammunitionAmmunitionAmmunition is a generic term derived from the French language la munition which embraced all material used for war , but which in time came to refer specifically to gunpowder and artillery. The collective term for all types of ammunition is munitions...
, including any parts that could be used to assemble a firearm as well as (as of July 30, 2007) any firearm part that is required for the firing of a gun, including bullet tips, brass casings and shells, barrels, slides, cylinders, magazines, firing pins, trigger assemblies, etc. CrossbowCrossbowA crossbow is a weapon consisting of a bow mounted on a stock that shoots projectiles, often called bolts or quarrels. The medieval crossbow was called by many names, most of which derived from the word ballista, a torsion engine resembling a crossbow in appearance.Historically, crossbows played a...
s and various types of knives are also forbidden. - Police and emergency service vehicular warning equipment such as red or blue lights and sirens (antique or collectible items are exempt)
- Used underwearUndergarmentUndergarments or underwear are clothes worn under other clothes, often next to the skin. They keep outer garments from being soiled by bodily secretions and discharges, shape the body, and provide support for parts of it. In cold weather, long underwear is sometimes worn to provide additional...
(see Panty fetishism) and dirty used clothing - Forged, illegal, stolen, or confidential documents, which include passports, social security cards, drivers licences, voter registration cards, birth certificates, school documents, medical records, financial information, government license plates, government classified information, or CarFax documents. Any item that is used to modify documents is also restricted.
- Human parts and remains (with an exception for skeletons and skulls for scientific study, provided they are not Native AmericanNative Americans in the United StatesNative Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
in origin) - Live animals (with certain exceptions)
- Certain copyrighted works or trademarked items.
- Lottery tickets, sweepstakes tickets, or any other gambling items.
- Military hardware such as working weapons or explosives.
- Enriched uranium, plutonium, and other fissile material.
- Sexually oriented adult material, which must be listed in the "Adult Only" category, notwithstanding certain items prohibited:
- Child pornography
- Materials deemed obscene, including bestiality, necrophilia, rape, coprophiliaCoprophiliaCoprophilia , also called scatophilia or scat, is the paraphilia involving sexual pleasure from feces...
, and incest - Used sex toys
- Services including any sexual activity
- Links to sites that contain prohibited items
- Adult products that are delivered digitally
- Virtual items from massively multiplayer online gameMassively multiplayer online gameA massively multiplayer online game is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on...
s, restrictions that vary by country - Ivory products
- Knives, other than cutlery, are prohibited in the UK following media pressure about the sale of items assessed by police to be "illegal"
- Many other items are either wholly prohibited or restricted in some manner.
Unusual sale items
Many unusual items have been placed for sale on eBay, including at least two previously undiscovered species, including the Coelopleurus exquisitusCoelopleurus exquisitus
Coelopleurus exquisitus is a sea urchin species found off the coast of the island of New Caledonia in the Pacific Ocean. It is an epifaunal deep water species living at depths of between and was only identified and named in 2006....
sea urchin
Sea urchin
Sea urchins or urchins are small, spiny, globular animals which, with their close kin, such as sand dollars, constitute the class Echinoidea of the echinoderm phylum. They inhabit all oceans. Their shell, or "test", is round and spiny, typically from across. Common colors include black and dull...
military vehicles, and items of food.
Charity auctions
Using MissionFishMissionFish
Founded in 1999, MissionFish is the partner charity of eBay, which runs auction and shopping websites in 30 countries. Through MissionFish, eBay users are able to donate to registered nonprofit organisations when they buy and sell through the eBay.com and eBay.co.uk sites...
as an arbiter, eBay allows sellers to donate a portion of their auction proceeds to a charity of the seller's choice. The program is called eBay Giving Works in the US, and eBay for Charity in the UK. eBay provides a partial refund of seller fees for items sold through charity auctions. As of March 4, 2010, $154 million has been raised for U.S. nonprofits by the eBay Community since eBay Giving Works began in 2003.
Some high-profile charity auctions have been advertised on the eBay home page, and have raised large amounts of money in a short time. For example, a furniture manufacturer raised over $35,000 for Ronald McDonald House
Ronald McDonald House Charities
Ronald McDonald House Charities is an independent 501c3 organization whose mission is to create, find and support programs that directly improve the health and well being of children across the world...
by auctioning off beds that had been signed by celebrities.
To date the highest successful bid on a single item for charity was for the annual "Power Lunch" with investor Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett
Warren Edward Buffett is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is widely regarded as one of the most successful investors in the world. Often introduced as "legendary investor, Warren Buffett", he is the primary shareholder, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is...
at the famous Smith & Wollensky Steakhouse in New York. The winning bid was $2.63 million with all of the proceeds going to the Glide Foundation
Glide Foundation
The Glide Foundation is a charity organization based in San Francisco, named after and run by Glide Memorial Church. It is known for working with investor Warren Buffett who has donated the proceeds from his eBay "Power Lunch with Warren Buffett" auctions to Glide. The winning bid in 2006 was...
. At the time of writing, the winning bidder is still not publicly known, but they will be able to bring up to seven friends to the lunch.
The previous highest successful bid on a single item for charity was for a letter sent to Mark P. Mays, CEO of Clear Channel
Clear Channel Communications
Clear Channel Communications, Inc. is an American media conglomerate company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It was founded in 1972 by Lowry Mays and Red McCombs, and was taken private by Bain Capital LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners LP in a leveraged buyout in 2008...
(parent company of Premiere Radio Networks
Premiere Radio Networks
Premiere Networks is an American radio network. It is the largest syndication company in the United States based on popularity of programming...
the production company that produces The Rush Limbaugh Show
The Rush Limbaugh Show
The Rush Limbaugh Show is an American talk radio show hosted by Rush Limbaugh on Premiere Radio Networks...
and Glenn Beck Program
Glenn Beck Program
The Glenn Beck Program is an American talk radio show hosted by commentator Glenn Beck on Premiere Radio Networks. Since its inception as a nationally syndicated show in 2002, the program has become one of the highest rated radio programs...
) by Senator Harry Reid
Harry Reid
Harry Mason Reid is the senior United States Senator from Nevada, serving since 1987. A member of the Democratic Party, he has been the Senate Majority Leader since January 2007, having previously served as Minority Leader and Minority and Majority Whip.Previously, Reid was a member of the U.S...
and forty other Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
senators, complaining about comments made by conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
talk show host Rush Limbaugh
Rush Limbaugh
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III is an American radio talk show host, conservative political commentator, and an opinion leader in American conservatism. He hosts The Rush Limbaugh Show which is aired throughout the U.S. on Premiere Radio Networks and is the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United...
. The winning bid was $2,100,100, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, benefiting the education of children of men and women who have died serving in the armed forces. The winning bid was matched by Limbaugh in his largest charity donation to date.
In 2007, eBay Canada partnered with Montreal-based digital branding agency CloudRaker
CloudRaker (advertising agency)
CloudRaker is a privately held creative agency specialized in branding, digital platforms, social media and content development. The agency was founded in 2000 in Montreal, and has a client portfolio in Canada, the US and Europe.- Advertising Agency :...
to develop a campaign to raise money for Sainte-Justine children's hospital in Montreal. They aligned themselves with internet phenomenon Têtes à claques
Têtes à claques
Têtes à claques is a French-language humour website created on August 16, 2006. Over one million short videos are watched per day, making it one of the most popular francophone websites in Quebec and Canada. As of March 2011, there are 184 videos...
to create an eBay auction based on popular T-A-C character Uncle Tom, an infomercial host who pitches absurd products. eBay and CloudRaker
CloudRaker (advertising agency)
CloudRaker is a privately held creative agency specialized in branding, digital platforms, social media and content development. The agency was founded in 2000 in Montreal, and has a client portfolio in Canada, the US and Europe.- Advertising Agency :...
reproduced Uncle Tom's imaginary products, The Body Toner Fly Swatter, The Willi Waller Potato Peeler, and the LCD Shovel and sold them online. In 6 weeks, they raised $15,000 for Hôpital St-Justine with one fly swatter, one potato peeler, and one shovel, a world record. The Body Toner Fly Swatter sold for $8,600, the Willi Waller Potato Peeler sold for $3,550, and the LCD Shovel sold for $2,146.21.
Environmental record
On May 8, 2008, eBay announced the opening of its newest building on the company's North Campus in San Jose, which is the first structure in the city to be built from the ground up to LEEDLeadership in Energy and Environmental Design
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design consists of a suite of rating systems for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings, homes and neighborhoods....
Gold standards. The building, the first the company has built new in its 13-year existence, uses an array of 3,248 solar panels, spanning 60000 square feet (5,574.2 m²), and providing 650 kilowatts of power to eBay's campus. All told the array can supply the company with 15-18 percent of its total energy requirements, reducing the amount of greenhouse gas
Greenhouse gas
A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone...
es that would be produced to create that energy by other means. SolarCity
SolarCity
SolarCity is an American provider of solar energy system design, financing, installation and related services and also builds charging stations for electric vehicles....
, the company responsible for designing the array, estimates that the solar panels installed on eBay's campus will prevent 37 million pounds of carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
from being released into the environment as a result of replaced power production over the next three decades. Creating an equivalent impact to remove the same amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would require planting 322 acres (1.3 km²) of trees. The design of the building also incorporates other elements to reduce its impact on the environment. The building is equipped with a lighting system that detects natural ambient light sources and automatically dims artificial lighting to save 39 percent of the power usually required to light an office building. eBay's newest building also reduces demand on local water supplies by incorporating an eco-friendly irrigation system, low-flow shower heads, and low-flow faucets. Even during construction, more than 75 percent of the waste from construction was recycled. eBay also runs buses between San Francisco and the San Jose campus to reduce the number of commuting vehicles.
Skype
eBay Inc. acquired Skype in 2005 and significantly expanded its customer base to more than 480 million registered users worldwide. To focus on its core e-commerce and payments businesses, eBay Inc. sold a majority stake in Skype in November 2009, retaining a minority investment in the company. In May 2011, Microsoft announced that it had acquired Skype for $8.5 billion.Craigslist
In the summer of 2004, eBay acknowledged that it had acquired 25% of classified listings website, CraigslistCraigslist
Craigslist is a centralized network of online communities featuring free online classified advertisements, with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services, community, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums....
. Former Craigslist executive Phillip Knowlton was the seller, and he insisted that his former employer was aware of his plans to divest his holdings. Initially, eBay assured Craigslist that they would not ask the company to change the way it does business. eBay spokesman Hani Durzy stated that the "investment was really for learning purposes; it gives us access to learn how the classified market online works."
The classifieds service Kijiji
Kijiji
Kijiji is a centralized network of online urban communities for posting local online classified advertisements. It is a subsidiary of eBay launched in March 2005. Kijiji websites are currently available for more than 300 cities in Germany. Further Kijiji countries and regions are Canada, France,...
was launched by eBay in March 2005. In April 2008, eBay sued Craigslist to "safeguard its four-year financial investment", claiming that in January 2008, Craigslist took actions that "unfairly diluted eBay's economic interest by more than 10%." Craigslist countersued in May 2008 "to remedy the substantial and ongoing harm to fair competition" that Craigslist claims is constituted by eBay's actions as a Craigslist shareholder. In September 2010, Delaware Judge William Chandler ruled that the actions of Craigslist were unlawful, and that the actions taken by Craigslist founders Jim Buckmaster and Craig Newmark had "breached their fiduciary duty of loyalty", and restored eBay's stake in the company to 28.4% from a diluted level of 24.85%. However, the judge dismissed eBay's objection to a staggered board provision citing that Craigslist has the right to protect its own trade secrets. eBay spokesman Michael Jacobson stated "We are very pleased that the court gave eBay what it sought from the lawsuit."
See also
- eBay v. Bidder's EdgeEBay v. Bidder's EdgeeBay v. Bidder's Edge, , was a leading case applying the trespass to chattels doctrine to online activities. In 2000, eBay, an online auction company, successfully used the 'trespass to chattels' theory to obtain a preliminary injunction preventing Bidder’s Edge, an auction data aggregator, from...
- Tiffany (NJ) Inc. v. eBay Inc.Tiffany (NJ) Inc. v. eBay Inc.Tiffany Inc. v. eBay Inc. 600 F.3d 93 , is a United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit case in which defendant Tiffany & Co...