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Amazon versus eBay

Angelia Bradley

Professor Timothy Carr

Financial Accounting

December 11, 2012

Amazon versus eBay
Jeff Bezos, founded Amazon.com in 1994 when he left his job as Vice-President of the Wall Street firm D.E. Shaw to move to Seattle. After reading a report that projected annual Web growth at 2.300 percent he launched his website in 1995. He began drawing up a plan to sell a list of products on the internet. Bezos narrow his list to five most common products: compact discs, computer hardware, computer software, videos, and books. The $40,000 investment from Nick Hanauer and $100,000 from Tom Alburg help created a more user friendly website that we used today.
So, they quickly shed the image of only auctioning collectibles and moved into every type of market. Husiao (2005) stated, “EBay’s vision for success transitioned from one of commerce--buying and selling thing--to one of connecting people around the world together.”
Jeffrey Skoll, co-founder joined the company in 1996. In March 1998, Maragent (Meg) Whitman, a Harvard Business School graduate joined as President and CEO until she retired in January 2008. In September of 1998, eBay had its initial public stock offering (IPO) which made Omidyar and Skoll billionaires. Shares of eBay went up 163.2 percent to close at 47.375 today, up 29.375 from its target price of $18 a share. The stock opening price of 53.50 per share soared far above its target price. Wall Street had expected a strong performance from the IPO after eBay underwriters yesterday afternoon priced the deal at the high end of its increased pricing range. With its IPO, eBay raised $63 million by floating out 3.5 million shares. Based on the company’s 39.7 million outstanding shares and its share prices at the close of the day, the company’s market cap hit nearly $1.9 billion. Competitors such as Amazon.com market cap was $350.4 million at the close of market today. eBay IncNASDAQ: EBAY – Dec 7,2012 4:00pm ET51.74-0.25‎ (-0.48%‎) | December 4, 2012 Stock InformationeBay.com, Inc. (NSDQ:EBAY)Last Trade: