E-Bay Business Models and StrategiesE-Business Models and Strategies Has anyone ever felt frustrated trying to find merchandise that no one seems to have? Or how about looking for the autograph of your favorite artist or professional player? How about looking for new/old Pez dispensers? Well, I'm sure anyone who has needed or searched for one of these particular products online has stopped by E-bay to take a look at what exactly they have to offer. E-bay is an online auction company that acts as an intermediary between buyers and sellers. It was started in 1995 by a man named Pierre Omidyar, who had started the site as a hobby, originally used by his girlfriend as a trading bag for collecting Pez dispensers. Who would have thought that today, what started as a hobby could turn into a widely accepted and growing stock on the NASDAQ stock market. Considering how technologically advanced we are today, it's easy to see why E-Bay has grown continuously over the past 12 years, on its way to becoming the largest and most popular online auction site in the world today. However, E-bay would be considered as successful as them, if they had just introduced the site into today's common e-business world. E-bay is considered the best online auction site in the world, and to think that if they had introduced this service into today's business world they would not have had the same success, it would be absolutely absurd. However, it is difficult to imagine how the success of E-bay would have been viewed if it had been created in the present day. The introduction of the Internet in the 1990s helped play a huge role in the success of e-bay and made it what it is today. Consider......half of the paper......all the customers of E-bay's already huge customer base simply for the fact that E-bay offers its customers everything they are looking for, from simplicity to accessibility , to products they can't find in any store or other online source from around the world. What was once a small home hobby of trading and purchasing Pez dispensers has turned into a multi-billion dollar industry. E-Bay is operationally solid, especially considering that it is still in development and has a business model that scales very well. Management has proven to respond quickly and well and has worked hard to expand the business without jeopardizing core business strategies. While eBay stock may still be overvalued, the company fundamentals are solid and the only risk is that eBay won't grow as fast as expected.