eBay Profit and Transactions

Profit and transactions
eBay generates revenue from a number of fees. The eBay fee system is quite complex; there are fees to list a product and fees when the product sells, plus several optional fees, all based on various factors and scales. The U.S.-based ebay.com takes $0.20 to $80 per listing and 5.25% or less of the final price (as of 2007). The UK based ebay.co.uk (ebay.co.uk offices) takes from GBP £0.15 to a maximum rate of GBP £3 per 100 for an ordinary listing and from 0.75% to 5.25% of the final price. In addition, eBay now owns the PayPal payment system which has fees of its own. Under current U.S. law, a state cannot require sellers located outside the state to collect a sales tax, making deals more attractive to buyers.
The company's current business strategy includes increasing revenue by increasing international trade within the eBay system. eBay has already expanded to almost two dozen countries including China and India. The only places where expansion failed were Taiwan and Japan, where Yahoo! had a head start.

Acquisitions and investments
In July 1998, eBay acquired Cincinnati, Ohio based online auction site Up4Sale.com.
In May 1999, eBay acquired the online payment service Billpoint, which it shut down after acquiring PayPal.
In 1999 eBay acquired the auction house Butterfield & Butterfield, which it sold in 2002 to Bonhams.
In 1999 eBay acquired the auction house Alando for $43 million, which changed then to eBay Germany.
In June 2000 eBay acquired Half.com for $318 million, which was later integrated with the eBay Marketplace.
In December 2000 eBay acquired the Precision Buying Service portion of Deja.com.
In August, 2001, eBay acquired Mercado Libre, Lokau and iBazar, Latin American auction sites.
In July, 2002 eBay acquired PayPal, for $1.5 billion in stock.
On January 31, 2003, eBay acquired CARad.com, an auction management service for car dealers.
On July 11, 2003 eBay Inc. acquired EachNet, a leading ecommerce company in China, paying approximately $150 million in cash.
On June 22, 2004, eBay acquired all outstanding shares of Baazee.com, an Indian auction site for approximately US $50 million in cash, plus acquisition costs. Baazee.com subsequently became eBay India.
On August 13, 2004, eBay took a 25% stake in Craigslist by buying out an existing shareholder who was once a Craigslist employee.
In September 2004, eBay moved forward on its acquisition of Korean rival Internet Auction Co. (IAC), buying nearly 3 million shares of the Korean online trading company for 125,000 Korean won (about US$109) per share.
In November 2004, eBay acquired Marktplaats.nl for €225 million. This was a Dutch competitor which had an 80% market share in the Netherlands, by concentrating more on small ads than actual auctions. Marktplaats is the Dutch word for Marketplace.
On December 16, 2004, eBay acquired Rent.com for $415 million in cash (original deal was for $385 million of the amount in eBay stock plus $30 million in cash).
In May 2005, eBay acquired Gumtree, a network of UK local city classifieds sites.
On May 18, 2005, eBay acquired the Spanish classifieds site Loquo.
In June 2005, eBay acquired Shopping.com, an online comparison site for $635 million.
At the end of June 2005, eBay acquired the German language classifieds site Opus Forum.
In September 2005, eBay bought Skype, a VoIP company, for $2.6 billion in stock and cash.
In April 2006, eBay invested $2 million in the Meetup social networking site.
In April 2006, eBay acquired Tradera.com, Sweden's leading online auction-style marketplace for $48 Million.
In August 2006, eBay announced international cooperation with Google. Financial details have not been disclosed by either party.
In February 2007, eBay acquired online ticket marketplace Stubhub for $307 million.