eBay business

Profit and transactions

A screenshot of eBay's front page.

eBay generates revenue from a number of fees. There are fees to list a product and fees when the product sells. The eBay fee system is quite complex and takes $0.20 to $80 per listing and 3-5% of the final price. In addition, eBay now owns the PayPal payment system which has fees of its own.

The company's current business strategy includes increasing revenue by increasing international trade within the eBay system. eBay has already expanded to almost two dozen countries including China and India. The only place where expansion failed was Japan where Yahoo had a head start.

Acquisitions

• In May, 1999, eBay acquired the online payment service Billpoint, which it shut down after acquiring Paypal.
• In 1999, eBay acquired the auction house Butterfield & Butterfield, which it sold in 2002 to Bonhams.
• In 1999, eBay acquired the auction house Alando for $43 million, which changed then to eBay Germany.
• In June, 2000, eBay acquired Half.com, which was later integrated with the eBay Marketplace.
• In August, 2001, eBay acquired Mercado Libre, Lokau and iBazar, Latin Americas auction sites.
• In July, 2002, eBay acquired PayPal, for $1.5 billion in stock.
• On July 11, 2003 eBay Inc. acquired EachNet, a leading ecommerce company in China, paying approximately $150 million in cash.
• On June 22, 2004, eBay acquired all outstanding shares of Baazee.com, an Indian auction site for approximately US $50 million in cash, plus acquisition costs.
• On August 13, 2004, eBay took a 25% stake in craigslist.org by buying out an existing shareholder who was once a craigslist employee.
• In September 2004, eBay moved forward on its acquisition of Korean rival Internet Auction Co. (IAC), buying nearly 3 million shares of the Korean online trading company for 125,000 Korean won (about US$109) per share.
• In November 2004, eBay acquired Marktplaats.nl for €225 million. This was a Dutch competitor which had a 80% market share in the Netherlands, by concentrating more on small ads than actual auctions.
• On December 16, 2004, eBay acquired rent.com for $30 million in cash and $385 million in ebay stock.
• In May 2005, eBay acquired Gumtree, a network of UK local city classifieds sites.
• In June 2005, eBay acquired Shopping.com, a online comparison site for $635 Million USD.
• In August 2005, eBay bought Skype, a VoIP company, for $2.6 billion in stock and cash.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.