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eBay Turns 24! Here’s How Much a $1,000-Investment in 2009 Is Now Worth

With all the new programs and technology being rolled out every day, it’s becoming increasingly harder for a business to stay relevant to its market unless it is willing to swim with the tide.

There are few who have managed to stay afloat throughout the years and stood the test of time, and they have done so by analyzing their rivals and beating them at every move.

Take a look at eBay, the e-commerce company that turned 24 on September 3. While most of us would stick to simply shopping on the online platform, others saw potential in it early on and chose to invest in it.

eBay’s 24 Years

In a world of ever-changing technology, running a business successfully for 24 years is no joke. Not all companies manage to stay afloat for that long and many don’t even make it through the first year.

This means that the employees of the San Jose, California-based business must feel proud of themselves, as they should – after all, they have played an important role in helping the e-commerce giant grow.

In fact, if you invested $1,000 in eBay 10 years ago, the investment would be worth over $4,500 today, just in time for eBay’s 24th birthday!

If you do the math, the company’s stock value has ballooned by 350 percent, and it was the early investors who got the biggest piece of the pie.

eBay initially was just a platform where buyers can bid for an item they want

To be fair, the platform has long delineated from its original auction-only format. Founded in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar, it was initially intended to be a place for sellers to post items and interested buyers on bid on them.

While this option still remains popular on eBay, it had also adopted other trading formats, providing the online retailers a “Buy It Now” option, pretty much like its competitor Amazon – this means that consumers can buy product without having to compete with other bidding parties.

eBay’s decision to incorporate the function that’s common among other competitors proved to be helpful because according to reports, 89 percent of its sales come from the “Buy It Now” option and not the auction feature, which it was initially known for.

PayPal’s shares rose by 180 percent after it went separate ways with eBay

eBay and PayPal’s Collaboration

The e-commerce giant also bought PayPal for $1.5 billion in 2002, but the merger ended in 2015 in eBay’s bid to keep up with other companies by providing a variety of payment methods.

Meanwhile, the online payment system was doing just fine even before the separation, which meant that it had the freedom to pursue other opportunities after the split.

PayPal’s stock have jolted to more than 180 percent since its separation from eBay, whose shares rose by only 43 percent.

Last year, the online retailer revealed that it was teaming up with Ayden, a payment platform which is an interestingly a direct rival of PayPal, whose stocks dipped 10 percent upon the announcement.

The e-commerce hopes to open many warehouses in different locations across the country for accessibility and efficiency

Future Plans

eBay seems nowhere near slowing down in its quest to e-tail domination and has a lot of plans for growth in the years to come. In July, it announced that by 2020, it would open more warehouses across the globe for a systemized and cheaper way for merchants to ship their items.

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