eBay

eBay was founded in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar in San Jose, California. The company is publicly traded on NASDAQ under the ticker EBAY. Its core product is an online marketplace enabling the buying and selling of new and used goods, between businesses and consumers (B2C) as well as between consumers (C2C), through both auction-style and fixed-price listings.

eBay operates a global marketplace platform where sellers — both individual and commercial — list products for buyers to find through search and category browsing. The primary revenue model is commission-based, with fees charged to sellers for listings and completed transactions. In 2002, eBay acquired PayPal, but spun it off as an independent public company in 2015. In subsequent years, eBay developed its own internal payment processing system, Managed Payments, which replaced the PayPal integration for sellers on the platform.

The core product is the marketplace platform itself, available via web and mobile apps. eBay Managed Payments is the proprietary payments infrastructure rolled out in recent years. eBay also operates eBay Motors for vehicles and parts, and localized marketplace platforms in numerous countries worldwide.

eBay's primary direct competitors include Amazon in broad e-commerce, and Etsy in the unique and secondhand goods segment. In 2020, eBay sold its Classifieds Group to Adevinta for approximately $9.2 billion, a move that allowed the company to sharpen focus on its core marketplace business. In recent years, eBay has pursued a "Focused Categories" strategy, investing deeply in specific verticals such as collectibles, luxury watches, sneakers, and fashion.

eBay has maintained an R&D presence in Israel, historically centered in the Tel Aviv area. The Israeli team focuses primarily on engineering and research and development work. A notable Israeli acquisition was Fraud Sciences, an Israeli anti-fraud and anti-phishing technology company acquired in 2008.