eBay is a popular e-commerce site that has advanced into an application on mobile devices and laptops. It is an online market space where you can purchase various goods for use and consuming. The store has been in existence for a number of decades and has proven to be worthy of its customers’ appreciation and feedbacks. The company has since acquired and created many other companies and sites, making it a parent owner of over 40 companies. Some of these companies are still under eBay, while some have become independent or sold to other companies.
In this article, we would be doing a good review of most of the companies that have been owned by eBay, the year they created, their functions, revenue sizes and websites. The companies would be well scrutinized to give good details on what they have been up to before an after purchase by eBay. The idea is to shed light on these subsidiaries that are owned by eBay to know why there were established or bought.
First of all, we would give a little background on the creation of eBay, its owner, challenges and achievements so far.
Let’s dive in!
About eBay
eBay is an e-commerce online store that was founded in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar, a computer programmer. It is a multinational company that serves both buyers and sellers of different types of products ranging from consumables to electronics and cars. The company also renders paid services in different forms. It started off as a website Omidyar created in 1995 to sell a broken pointer laser. He made $14.83 from it and due to the progress he recorded, he decided to use the website to start selling off items. It was initially known as AuctionWeb when he started it in California. The idea was to auction out used products and he used physical transactions. The buyer was allowed to meet the seller after initial transactions had been completed online. This made the site quite popular then.
According to reports, it was only a hobby for him at the time but when he saw the traffic his website was causing due to increased visitors on it, he decided to start charging the users for it. He started with only one employee who was in charge of processing check payments. In 1996, they had their first third-party license deal with a travel company. They used eBay site to sell plane tickets and travel products. By 1997, they changed their name to eBay which was named after Echo Bay Technology Group. They also got their first funding in the same year. By 1998, they became a public company, responsible for themselves and subject to all policies of companies in the United States. By 2008, the company had become a globally recognized company amassing millions of users and about $7.7 million in revenue.
The company continued to grow and face its own success and challenges. One of the controversial setbacks they had included being charged to court for entering non- solicitation agreements with some technological companies and using their skilled workers. The company has continued to grow by acquiring and laying off of many subsidiary companies. As at 2022, it had completed ownership of KnownOrigin, an NFT platform based in Manchester.
About the Founder; Pierre Omidyar.
Pierre Omidyar is the founder of eBay. He was born in the year, 1967 in Paris, France. He has triple nationalities; French, Iranian and American. Omidyar was born to Iranian parents who lived in France at the time but later migrated to the United States. He had his formative education in the US and moved on to study Computer Science at Tufts University in 1988. After completion of studies, he furthered at the University of California, Berkeley. He began working with a subsidiary of Apple that focused on computers and while he was there, he made some commendable improvements. He began to do personal computer programming such that by 1995, he had developed a computer code for an online website which he later named AuctionWeb. He started the site as an auction site where he could sell collectible items in a person-to-person purchase.
He officially began his company, eBay, in the same 1995 after he sold a broken laser pointer on the site. He was quite surprised that anyone would purchase a broken device but when he confirmed that the buyer actually wanted it, he decided it was good business then. Slowly but successfully, people began to trade goods on the site and rapidly, the number started increasing. He began using his gain to maintain the website. As time went on, he changed the company’s name to eBay and registered it fully. He focused solely on the company and began to take up investments to push the company forward. So far, EBay has been very successful, although there has been quite a number of setbacks but the company still tops the charts. Three has also been a lot of acquisitions and sell-offs.
Omidyar is not only a Computer Engineer but a philanthropist, a movie producer and an entrepreneur. He launched the Omidyar network and the Luminate Group, both being philanthropic organisations to courage investments that are channeled towards human rights, education and citizen’s engagement in government. He has also jointly produced two movies; Merchants of Doubt and Spotlight. He is currently married to Pamela Kerr.
eBay Sister Sites and Companies.
1. Up4Sale
This was one of eBay’s first acquisitions and subsidiary companies. It was created in July 1997 by Rob Ratterman, Chris Downie, Tom Duvall and Wally Caroll. The site was created as an auction website where people could trade and buy different items, especially fairly used items. On the site, the items were divided into various sections so that the buyers could easily identify what they wanted to buy. As an auction site, there was a particular price put up for each item but it could still be bargained depending on the seller and the worth of the item. The headquarters of the company was based in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. The company was bought by eBay in July, 1998. eBay incorporated it into their main company and made them more popular. The site also sold out toys in the site. It was later closed down in 2000, few years after startup.
Pros
- It was quite popular at the time because they sold rare items and top toys.
- The site had variety of items that were scarce to get.
Cons
- It was shut down after few years of existence.
Website: Up4Sale.com
2. Bonhams and Butterfield
Bonhams and Butterfield was an auction house founded in 1865 by William Butterfield. The headquarters was in San Francisco, United States. The auction house was one of the largest as at the time it was founded in America. They were in charge of auctioning different items. Later on, in 1999, eBay which was a fast growing e-commerce site and well known for making big purchases for smaller auction companies, bought Bonhams and Butterflied for about $260 million dollars. This purchase was done in 1999. The company became a property of eBay until it was sold to a British auctioneer. It still operated as Bonhams and Butterfield till 2012 and then changed to only Bonhams. There were quite a number of ownership switching since the company started.
Pros
- It maintained its name even while it was under eBay.
- It was among the biggest auctioning houses in the US then. You could bid landed properties, books and non-consumables on the site.
Cons
- There was quite a lot of transfer of ownership of the company, hence its slow performance at some point.
Website: http://www.bonhams.com/usa/home/
3. Billpoint
Billpoint was created by Young Lee, Hope Chen, Jason May, Will Chen, Jay Shen and Ian Flint in 1998. The company was headquartered in Redwood city, California. It was designed as a person-to-person money transfer service to help customers buy and pay for things online. The idea was to make payment easy and swift. The company was bought by eBay in 1999. It took them a whole year to incorporate it into the main company. This caused certain setbacks for the company because during the space if that one tear, eBay also made a huge purchase of PayPal which was gaining fast popularity. By the time Billpoint came back in 2000, PayPal was already very popular and it was now hard to compete with them since they were doing the same role. eBay agreed to shut down Billpoint in 2003 after full acquisition of PayPal in 2002.
Pros
- The company was one of the service payment services created.
- It aided person-to-person money transfer.
Cons
- It suffered setbacks due to a long break and strong competition.
4. Kruse International
Kruse International started off as an auctioneer that sold landed properties that included farms, personal properties and all real estate. The company was founded by Russell Kruse in Auburn, Indiana in 1952. It was run by Russell and his two sons. Soon, the company switched to car sales after selling their first car on auction on Labor day in 1971. Subsequently, they started selling cars in other states and the business was doing very well. They even sold a car worth $1 million to the owner of Dominos Pizza, Tom Monaghan. The company was bought by several companies and bought back by the real owners before it was sold to eBay for $275 million in 1999. The company was later bought back again by the real owners in 2002. By 2010, the company suffered some setbacks by not being able to pay clients. They ended up selling the company and the auction park to RM Auctions of Canada.
Pros
- The company was the first to auction cars at a high price.
- They made their auctions an annual sale to help generate money.
Cons
- They suffered many setbacks due to multiple reselling of the company and ended up closing it down.
5. Half.com
Half.com is an online market place where sellers and buyers communicate electronically to purchase and sell different items. This company was created in April 1999. It controlled the sales of mostly textbooks, movies, video games, music and video games consoles. Most times, the sales were done were put up at no price. The buyer was allowed to fix an item at any price. The buyer determined the prices, not the website. Listing was done for free. The company only took commissions on each completed sales. It was created by Josh Kopelman and Sunny Balijepali. eBay bought the company in 2000 for approximately $350 million. They were popular for selling used textbooks and CD players. After increase of rates in 2016, things slightly changed and shortly after in 2017, eBay shut down the site.
Pros
- They specialized in textbooks and CD players.
- Initially, there were no fees to listen items on the site.
Cons
- The company crashed after inflation hit them.
Website: www.half.com
6. Auction Co.
Auction Co. was founded in South Korea in 1998. The company was founded as an auction site where people could list and bid items as they desired. It was always based in South Korea until its acquisition by eBay in January, 2001. The company suffered a major setback when its users’ information was breached and hacked into. The users sued the company but there wasn’t enough basis for the court to rule against them as they claimed it was not their fault.
Pros
- It was most favorable to those in South Korea.
Cons
- Users could not trust their information with the site after that major incident.
7. iBazar
iBazar is an online website where people buy and sell goods and services in Mexico. The company was launched in Mexico in April, 2013. The aim was to provide free classifieds network for those in Mexico. The company was bought by eBay in the early 2000s. The company was later joined with a new company eBay purchased known as Vivanuncios. The site was a free site for people to register and trade on. In 2013, eBay opened a Spanish version of it for US users, so like Mexicans had theirs in Spanish, US users also had a Spanish version. The site was named iBazar to represent Mexico’s long traditions of bazars, flea markets and fairs. It was later turned into Vivanuncios in 2015 and maintained the name.
Pros
- The site had both the English and Spanish version for those in the US.
- Registration was free for users.
Cons
- It was merged soon after acquisition.
Website: https://www.vivanuncios.com.mx/
7. PayPal
PayPal was created in 1998 by a host of people and has been sold from one company to the other since then. The company started under the name, Confinity. It was created by Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek and Max Levchin. The company was initially developed as a software company for handheld devices but it recorded zero success with it and decided to switch to being a digital wallet. The company kicked off this aspect of it in 1999. It moved on to merging with another company; x.com in 2000. Later on, the merged company completely got rid of x.com and focused on PayPal. It was bought by eBay in 2002 and became eBay’s payment service for all their auctions. Users paid through PayPal. In 2009, they secured a partnership with MasterCard to get more security for their payment service. The brand free steadily, acquiring more startup brands along the way. Until 2014, it was a sole property of eBay. It was sold off and became an independent company, though eBay users could still make use of it for payments.
Pros
- The company is a secure payment service and can be used for payment on many sites.
- In a recent survey, the brand is among the most trusted brands in the world.
Cons
- There were multiple purchases made on the brand.
Website: www.paypal.com
8. CARad.com
CARad.com is an online auction brand created in the United States. It is also based in the United States. The company is home to auctions for different types of cars in the US. The date of its original establishment is not known but it was bought by eBay in 2003. eBay continued the purpose it had been created for which was to sell cars online. It announced its acquisition in 2003 and proceeded to completing purchase in the same year. The amount it was purchased for is also unknown. It is under the subdivision of eBay motors.
Pros
- The company focused mainly on selling cars.
- It had the support of the eBay motors team.
Cons
- It carries out most of it operations in the United States.
9. EachNet
EachNet is originally a Chinese company with its headquarters in China. It was bought by eBay on the 11th of July 2003. The company’s focus was on sales of electronics. It was an online site where people traded electronics electronically. There is no original date of creation.
10. Mobile.de
This company is originally a German company with its headquarters in Germany. It was bought by eBay on the 24th of January, 2004. It is a Vehicle classifieds company and it was worth $152,000,000. It was devoted to advertising vehicles. The original date of creation is unknown.
11. Craigslist
Craigslist is an advertisement website that focuses o advertising jobs, housing, résumés, gigs, community services, items for sale, properties, résumés and discussions forums. The company was created by Craig in 1995, in San Francisco, California, US. It started out as an email distribution list to friends updating them of local events happening within their areas. It was just a friendly email list that contained ‘gist’ that was useful. Craig discovered that the internet could be used to create a social and trusting community where people could help each other by directing them to items or services they needed. He decided to take this opportunity to start Craigslist, where he attached upcoming events in a mail to his friends. It soon metamorphosed into a big thing as Craig found out that people were now using the site for non-social events that particularly included job postings and gig. By 2004, he started charging $25 dollars to post jobs on the site. In the same 2004, he put it up for auction and eBay bought 25% of the company. The site currently has an application that works for both Android and Apple phones. It is home to 2 million new jobs every month.
Pros
- You can submit jobs for listing at affordable prices.
- You can also find new jobs on the site for free at any time.
Cons
- The company has had lawsuits with local newspapers and blogs for different reasons where it was accused of going against its policies and breaching theirs.
Website: http://www.craigslist.org/
12. Marktplaats.nl
This website is an advertising site. It was established in 1999 by Rene Van Mullem. The website was initially a site where people could post ads and advertise their business for free. It was like a free marketplace where the sellers and buyers could interact. It later became a paid site where people posted classified ads. This was because the visitors were increasing and it was hard to maintain it without any fee. The site continued to grow rapidly and soon, it was sold to a Dutch company. The company later sold it to an eBay, the e-commerce giant, who later sold it to Adevinta, a Norwegian company. Marktplaats has over 6 million active ads. Its original place of creation was in the Netherlands.
Pros
- The site is a busy place for many ads.
- Their operation mode was strategic and progressive.
Cons.
- The site is restricted for certain areas only.
Website: https://www.marktplaats.nl/
13. Rent.com
This website was developed in 1999. It was initially known as Viva.com. The website catered to directing users to finding apartments. It was designed as a search engine that directly shows you different types of apartments that are available for lease or sale. The site was designed to make house hunting a lot easier for people. It is an online marketplace designed strictly for transactions on houses and properties. It works mostly with photos, videos and locations of the properties and houses. Most times, there are contacts or addresses for the agents or owners of the houses to be leased. It became a property in eBay in 2004. It was purchased for $415 million. It was later sold to RentPath in 2012 and subsequently to Redfin in 2021. The site is still very active.
Pros
- The company directed its sales to a particular item and things of the same type, which is houses and properties only.
- The search engine is an easy way to find an apartment quickly.
Cons
- It does not operate globally.
Website: www.rent.com
14. Gumtree
Gumtree is an advertising platform for various items. It was created in March 2000 by Michael Pennington and Crookall in London, United Kingdom. The company was created as a site to help Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans who had just moved or who were planning to move into the United Kingdom, find accommodation, jobs and meet new people of the same ethnicity. The idea was to create a social link group for them. By choosing the name ‘Gumtree’, it also reflected a sense of communalism among these three countries. According to them, the gum tree which is the eucalyptus tree was naturally found in Australia and New Zealand but also has species in South Africa. In 2005, eBay bought Gumtree for a certain sum. This purchase was done at the same time with the purchase of two other companies namely LuQUo and opusforum. It is still actively owned and operated by eBay.
Pros
- There was a genuine reason for creation.
- The reason was enough to spark traffic and funding for the site.
Cons
- It is not functioning globally. It is currently out of use in Poland.
Website: www.gumtree.com
15. Shopping.com
This website was originally owned by two Israeli men, Dr. Nahum Sharfman and Amir Ashkenazi. The initial reason for creation was to produce something that could monitor the inflation and deflation of prices of goods and services. It was supposedly to give the user information on price changes over an item that he intended to buy. The point was to let the user know when it was the right time to purchase the item. This was why they named the site DealTime. The target consumers were Americans. The team began to grow and maintained the policy of web-based service. The company expanded and recruited more workers. They also began to partner with some other web-designing companies. They even made some purchases that included buying a consumer product review site known as Epinions.com. They were the third most visited site after eBay and Amazon in 2004. They decided to sell off in 2005 and they were bought by eBay for $634 million. Its current headquarters is in Brisbane, California, US. It now has a French, Australian and German version of its website.
Pros
- The site operates broadly in the US, UK, Germany, France and Australia.
- It allows to compare product prices.
Cons
- The website is restricted to some countries only.
Website: www.shopping.com
16. Skype Technologies
Skype was formerly a subsidiary of eBay company until it was sold of to Microsoft. The company was founded in Luxembourg in 2003. It was founded by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom. It was designed as a software application that allowed people to make video calls and chat with instant messaging. The company was in charge of creating an marketing the application. Year after year, they sought to make it better because it was a video calling service and the quality needed steady improvement. By 2006, the service was popular around the world because they had up to 100 million users. The software application was not yet compatible with many devices but could be used on some. In 2006, two different versions were released for Mac and Windows systems. By 2008, the company focused its directions on putting the application on smartphone and other systems. They were able to achieve this and more as the quality became stronger and clearer. eBay came into the picture in 2005 but sold it out in 2009 to Microsoft. It is now an independent company owned by Microsoft and it still functions actively.
Pros
- The application can be used for personal and business purposes. They have over 660 million users.
- It is available in over 27 languages.
Cons
- The app is restricted to some countries.
Website: www.skype.com
17. StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon was a search engine that helped users find things they were interested in. The search engine lived up to its name by helping individually stumble upon similar things they might have searched for before or things that were close to what they usually searched for. This included photos, videos and pages. Most times, it was personalized to their taste. The site was quite an interesting one because you would always find something you liked. It was formed by Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith in November 2001. This was done while they were still at the University of Calgary. The initial idea was to use only five or six products, so the users can get similar interests of those items. The company took off a light speed and was soon attracting investors. Soon, eBay bought it for $75 million in 2007. The ownership did not last because the founders bought it back in 2009. The website developed an app that was available on Apple and Play Store. They suffered some financial debts and were sold off again. It was later shut down in 2018 and was merged with a new search engine company developed by one of its founders.
Pros
- The site was a right guesser. It directed users to items they were familiar with or had interest in.
- Navigating the app and site was very straightforward and simple.
Cons
- They suffered financial crisis that led to it being sold off.
18. Tradera
Tradera is also known as Tradera.com. It is an online market place where various items ranging from household items, fashion and beauty products, tech gadgets, interior design and collectibles are sold. The website has its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden but allows users from all over the world. The site is home for listings from buyers and purchases from sellers. All items can be bought on the site with mutual agreements from both parties under the website policies. The site used to run on only auctions but now allows fixed price sales too. Items purchased and sold on the site are both new and fairly used products. It was initially started as a site to trade jewelry in Europe but later expanded to what it is today. It began operates in 1999 with Daniel Kaplan as the first CEO. It was purchased by eBay in 2006 for 364 million SEK. After eBay released PayPal, Tradera became a part of it and no longer functioned under eBay.
Pros
- The company served auction and fixed price sales.
- It is an international company.
- Different items can be found on the site.
Cons
- The site is only available in four languages.
Website: www.tradera.com
19. StubHub
This company is one of eBay’s subsidiaries that was designed to exchange and resell tickets. These tickets are usually sports, theaters, concerts or any social events tickets. StubHub is in charge of selling the tickets for the organizers of the events. Most times, the event organizers put up their tickets on the sites, so that interested persons could purchase their tickets from them. In this way, the organizers get to sell out more than they might be able to sell if they had sold it on their site. It also serves as a general site for organizers who don’t have an official site to sell their tickets. This site serves as a secondary website or a third party link for buyers. The company was created in 2000 by Jeff Fluhr and Eric Baker. The headquarters is in San Francisco, California, United States. They currently have over 16 million visitors every month and 10 million live events every month. It became a part of eBay in 2007.
Pros
- There is room for ticket exchange and resell on the site. This means you could exchange or resell unused tickets. You could also buy new ones.
- The site sells out tickets rapidly.
Cons
- Users are more familiar with this site than any individual site of the event host.
Website: http://stubhub.com/
20. Meetup.
This is another functioning company once owned by eBay. This company is designed as a social website and platform where people can host activities and events that are un their own interests. It is like a gathering of people of like minds to do things that interest them using the meetup space provided. These events can range from virtual meetings to discussions and social events of different kinds. It is basically a platform where people can discuss their interests or hobbies and also meet people who share similar ideas. The company was created in 2002 by Scott Heifermann and four others. The idea sprang up after a discussion with Heifermann’s neighbors after the September 11 attack on the Twin Towers. He began to see the importance of bringing back communal gatherings in America as that culture was fast fading. The company was launched and began to thrive. It was bought by eBay in March 2006 and was later sold to Alleycorp in 2020.
Pros
- The community can be used for political campaigns and rallies.
- It could also be used to gather participants for business forums and events.
Cons
- It allows different types of discussions and encourages counter arguments among opposing folks.
Website: meetup.com
21. G-Market
G-Market is a South Korean based online market place where collectibles, appliances, computers, vehicles, furniture, equipment and many other non-consumable items were sold and bought. The site started as an auction site where sellers would sell displayed items to the highest bidder for a certain amount. It later became a normal online market where things could be sold for fixed prices. The website is fully an e-commerce site where all kinds of trades of listed products are sold. The site originated from South Korea where it was established by Young Bae Ku. He created it in 1999 as an online auction company. It was formerly known as Goodsdaq. It was renamed Gmarket in 2003 and was also the first South Korean company to be listed on NASDAQ in 2006. It was acquired by eBay in 2009 for about 1.2 Billion dollars. It is still a subsidiary of eBay till date.
Pros
- The site is home to the best electronics because even top electronics companies like LG and Samsung market their goods on the space.
- The situation is available in Korean and English.
Cons
- According to research, the site can hide sellers that sell fake items. This is because they put up fake photos or videos of items and deliver counterfeit after payment.
- It is restricted to some countries.
Website: http://gmarket.co.kr/
22. Magento:
Magento is an online software market where software used in creating online stores and marketplaces are being sold. The company started as a software producing and selling company back in March 2008. It was originally a software company for a private US company. It had assistance from many volunteers and software developers. It was an open source website where anybody could contribute to. Up to 100,000 online shops have been created from the site. Most times, the software is being downloaded from the site and used for whatever purpose. Altogether, over 2.5 million downloads of the platform code has been done. The first generally available software was released in 2008. In this way, everybody had access to the software for personal purposes. The platform is written in PHP. The software is distributed under Open Software License (OSL) version 3.0. It was acquired by eBay in March, 2010 and was later sold to Adobe Inc.
Pros
- The software site is free.
- The innovations are also updated.
Cons
- There has been claims that the workers were not well paid after eBay acquired the company.
Website: http://magento.com/
23. Where.com
Where.com or Where.Inc is like a search engine or portal that helps users find things or information that is useful to them. It works with location mostly. It helps people use their location to find out local news, events, happenings, weather forecast, upcoming movies, reviews, restaurants, business news, cheap items, coupons, upcoming offers and many more. The site helps to provide content that are related to what the user needs or where the user stays. For instance, it helps its users find nearby places that the user desires to get things. It could be a movie center, grocery store or general direction. The site was launched in 2004 by Geoff Palmer, Frank Schrott and Alan Phillips. It was initially known as uLocate and was used to track building locations for companies. It later diversified into other things and developed products like Where.com and Where Ads. Where Ads is used for advertising similar things on the site. It is available as an app for mobile phones. It was acquired by eBay in 2011 and put under eBay’s independent pay service, PayPal.
Pros
- It can help you find your location and nearest places you need.
- It is compatible with many devices.
Cons
- It is only useful in North America.
Website: www.where.com
24. MissionFish
This is non-profit charity organisation that belongs to eBay. It is a conpany that runs auctions and shopping websites. These auction and websites are used to generate money that is donated to charity. It is eBay’s way of giving back to the society. The site started in 2000 when eBay thought of a way to generate charity for people. Therefore, they opened sites where people could donate items, carry out auctions or sell, so that the profits were kept for donations. In this way, eBay users could also contribute to generating money for charity. These sites are free-will donation sites and everything is done in compliance with the company’s policies. It was initially supported by other foundations and trust boards but later became eBay’s full responsibility. They have convinced thousands of other charities to join them in the cause.
Pros
- It is strictly for charity purposes and it is non-profitable.
- The organisation is a way of giving back to the community that has supported them over the years.
Cons
- People can donate any kind of items on the sites and they are not usually sorted to know their state until it has been received by the organizers.
25. Braintree
Braintree is a payment service providing company that was created in 2007 by Bryan Johnson. The company is in charge of designing mobile and web payment services for online companies. The company creates payment gateway for its clients which could be individuals or companies. Most times, online markets need an easy and secure gateway to process payments for their buyers and they do not want to go through long processes of physical payment or bank payments, so they get Braintree to create restricted accounts where their buyers can pay through. In this way, it I owned by them alone. Braintree started small but soon became and international company by 2012. It was bought by eBay in the same 2012 to be used by their own payment company, PayPal. After eBay put off PayPal, it became a part of PayPal. Braintree also has a credit card feature.
Pros
- The company created easy payment accounts and services for online companies.
- It is a secure payment service.
Cons
- The credit card featured has been overshadowed by MasterCard and online payment.
Website: braintreepayments.com
26. Shutl
Shutl is an eBay logistics company that was founded in the United Kingdom in 2008 by Tom Allason. The company was designed to help deliver goods and services to consumers. It started in London in 2008 when decided to take a huge investment from investors to kickoff the company. He initially started it as a delivery service that would deliver goods for various companies on the same day. This meant that Shutl would receive pre-orders from various businesses and deliver it on the same day they wanted. It helped speed-up delivery especially as delivery services were always busy at the time. It was only available in London but later spread throughout the United Kingdom and later to America. It was bought BT eBay in 2013 and is still running by them.
Pros
- It is a same- day delivery service, otherwise known as express delivery.
Cons
- It is still restricted to the UK and some parts of the US.
Website: Shutl.com
27. Twice
Twice is an e-commerce store that sells fairly used clothing. It is another branch of eBay that focuses on only clothing but particularly on second-hand clothing. The site was founded in 2012 by Noah Ready-Campbell and Calvin Young. Both started the website with the sales of only female clothing and handbags. They later added handbags and shoes in 2014 and men’s clothing in 2015. Very soon, the company was booming and had millions of visitors daily. By 2015, it was acquired by eBay. The site processes all buying and selling processes for buyers because they already have certain agreements with the sellers. All clothes or other items sold on the site must not be more than five years old, must not be torn or completely worn out. The site is currently locked down.
Pros
- The site is a good space to sell off clothing that hasn’t been worn often.
- Clothes that are returned due to one complaint or the other are usually given out as charity.
Cons
- Buying clothes there can be tricky because something might be wrong with it and it won’t be noticed until it is bought.
28. Corrigon
Corrigon is a visual search company owned by eBay. It allows you find similar objects or items through visual search. It is quite easy because once the intended item is uploaded, the site brings out many others like it. The site has an image identifier which it uses to identify images like the one out before it. The sole focus of the site is to identify images of like types anywhere they are used online. This means that they focus on image copyright. They want to know places where the images have been used and what it is being used for especially if some images are not to be shared randomly. The company was founded in 2007 by Einav Itamar and Avinoam Omer. eBay bought it in October 2016 for $20 million.
Pros
- It can identify images whether the have been altered through coloring, shading or cropping.
- The site is a good way to find out misused photos.
Cons
- Photos can be tracked anywhere in the world.
29. Ticketbis
This is a ticketing company owned by eBay. It is just like StubHub. It is an online site where people can buy and sell tickets for concerts, shows, matches and many more. It can be used by individuals or companies to sell out their tickets. A certain percentage goes to the site for pushing the sales of the tickets. The site is a secondary ticket exchange and sale platform formed by Ander Michelena and John Uriarte. They started the company in 2009 in Spain, after they saw how well StubHub had done in the US. Their company was later bought by the same eBay that bought StubHub and made it a part of StubHub, though it majorly operates in Spain, Mexico, Germany and the UK.
Pros
- The company functions as a part of StubHub but as a subsidiary working in other countries it cannot reach.
- All kinds of tickets can be bought and resold on it.
Cons
- It is limited to particular countries.
Website: Ticketbis official website
30. KnownOrigin
Their latest company was bought in June 2022. It is known as KnownOrigin, an NFT marketplace where people can buy and sell arts and photos of different kinds in bitcoin. It is traded in crypto. KnownOrigin is one of the biggest and most popular trading spaces for artworks. It allows any and every artist and designer to sell their products there and the pay is traded in crypto. eBay bought the company recently at an undisclosed amount.
Website: https://knownorigin.io/
Generally, all eBay services are divided into eBay stores, eBay motors and eBay express.
Summary
eBay has amassed millions of dollars through over forty companies that they have owned. Steadily and rapidly, they have increased the wealth of the world and have added economic value in the necessary areas. What is most striking about the company is the potentials they see in startup businesses and the quick advantage they always take to turn it into something more productive. This skill has never failed them and has helped them create a community of growing companies in various sectors of the world. Some of these companies have been integrated into others, some have been sold out or shut down but some still remain independent. Whichever way, eBay has largely influenced any company it owns or has owned at some point and the effects are very visible.
This list is very comprehensive and has listed all the companies currently or previously owned by eBay with specific dates and brief history. The company continues to make more creations and acquisitions as it moves with the technological trend.
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