A Corporate and Financial Analysis of Ebay.Inc
Executive Summary
Section One - Corporate Level
Part 1 - Brief History of the Corporation
eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar's in his San Jose home in September of 1995, under the name AuctionWeb. From its early beginnings it was meant to be a marketplace for the sale of goods and services for a variety of interested individuals. It was incorporated in 1996, and has since grown to become the world's largest most financially successful online auction company.
After realizing the overall potential of his idea, Pierre and his cofounder Jeff Skoll brought on Meg Whitman, as CEO, to efficiently handle the growing popularity, and sustain eBay's success. Meg earned a MBA at Harvard Business School, and had gained high acclaims and top-shelf experience at the successful company of Hasbro.
With the addition of Meg Whitman's expert experience eBay soon expanded rapidly to service a wide variety of buyers and sellers, and in September of 1998 the company went public. The shares were initially offered at $18 and immediately rose to $47 by the end of the day. The company has not faltered since, rising to revenues exceeding $700 million by 2001.
In its short history, eBay has chosen several different paths than traditional companies to get to where it is. Most all of eBay's advertisement was done through word of mouth and through agreements with a few Internet companies such as AOL and Disney. The large portion of savings from low advertising costs is invested in innovative marketing strategies to keep them ahead of its competitors.
I believe that eBay is has achieved such an incredible amount of success in such a relatively short period of time because of its beginning p ...