ebay: The brand that taught the word ‘trust’ on internet

 Can I buy a jet over internet?

eBay says “Yes we did it in 2001!” eBay had sold a Gulfstream II aircraft for $ 4.9 million. The jet was sold by the largest jet

dealer at that time, Tyler Jet.

Which is the place where millions of auctions take place at a single go! Which is the podium when buyers and sellers from any part of the world feel contented? It’s the eBay.com. The leading e-commerce  website in today’s generation is the world’s largest market place on internet by the American corporation, eBay Inc. It has even acquired the strong businesses like IBazar, Skype and PayPal to add strength to it’s wings over internet.

1995: Labor Day weekend

The brand eBay that we know today was called as “AuctionWeb” when it was initially launched by Pierre Omidyar at his living room, San Jose, California. Pierre Omidyar’s umbrella company, eBay Internet was the head of AuctionWeb.

 (A screen-image of the then website AuctionWeb)

eBay Internet had four sites under it. Beside AuctionWeb, there were sites on Ebola virus, personal shopping and travel.

The journey from AuctionWeb to eBay:

eBay’s founder Pierre Omidyar of Echo Bay Inc. decided to change AuctionWeb to eBay. Jeffrey Skoll was hired as the first president of the firm during the early 1996. Both were the only eBay’s full time employees in 1997. The change became vital when they identified that customers referred AuctionWeb as ‘eBay’. Even the media coverage during its set up used ‘eBay’ often than ‘AuctionWeb’.

1997: He wanted echobay but end-up buying the fortune called “ebay”!

The official name-change took place in September 1997, when a new graphical website welcomed the existing users. With the multicolored eBay logo, the home page was introduced. Now where did this eBay come from? Once when Omidyar visited Sacramento in United States to register a domain name “echobay.com” for his firm, Echo Bay Inc. He found that this name was already taken by someone and he thought of a coined word “eBay” and that was available as a domain. Thus, he registered eBay.com as the domain name for his website. 

For a very short time period, the eBay logo in navy blue design was placed. This logo couldn’t be found in the internet and is lost in the crowd as it wasn’t used or neither put up on the website for long. It can only be found under the eBay listings posted by the current host of eBayRadio. 

1998: The logo that ruled more than a decade

It was the time when eBay came public. With time, the leadership has changed and the eBay’s marketplace has evolved better. It offered a better experience, better interaction and better communication. They felt the need to update the logo to meet the vision in the future. The logo wasn’t updated till a decade. Sooner the customers and employers felt the brands identity outdated. The marketplace of eBay has offered Lippincott to help it redesign its identity, its brand, content strategy and personality. 

2012: The new identity, the new logo!

After the long seventeen years, the logo grew up to transform itself a little. In the new logo, the colors are almost similar but are gentle. It was launched during October, 2012. The zigzag text is gone forever! It is replaced by a rigid and straight laced arrangement. Though the letters are not overlapping this time, they are in contact with each other, representing their ‘connected and diverse’ attitude. The president, Devin Wenig speaks about the new logo as a striking balance between the aspirations for a ‘cleaner, more contemporary and consistent experience’ and the proud history of the firm.

“The eBay logo is known the world over, so changing it was not a decision made lightly. The time felt right.” — Devin Wenig, President eBay. 

Checkout what Devin announces on launching this new motif! Click on http://pages.ebay.co.uk/announcement/

Concept of the eBay logo: 

The present logo of eBay was designed by Elissa Davis under Bill Cleary from a reputed California design agency, CKS Group. You might have noticed, the letters of the old eBay logo text are not placed on the same level. This zigzag manner is called ‘baseline shift’ in graphic designing terms. The firm is constantly growing and is always ready to undergo changes; the text itself beautifies the logo. The text is written as ‘eBay’ but the logo it is mentioned as ‘ebaY’. The designers felt that the uppercase letter ‘B’ would block the text at the center of the logo so they capitalized the last letter, ‘Y’. The colors of eBay logo represent enthusiasm, energy and entertainment. The font is a modification of a font from the font family of Univers®.

The first product SOLD OUT!

Inquisitive to know what was the first product sold on eBay? It was this broken laser pointer pen. During 1995, on the Labor Day weekend, Omidyar the founder,  put his experiment into action. He wanted to see what it would be like, if all the people in the world come to a single marketplace. The result of this experiment is this Auction Website. He listed his broken laser pen he was about to throw away. Ironically, a collector brought it for 14.83 dollars. 

It’s the trust that brought people together!

It is during October 09, 2014 it has launched its first ever global brand campaign. It has put an effort to create a perception of the brand among the public. The campaign ‘shop the world’ is all about how eBay has made the entire world a shoppable place. The present president of the eBay marketplaces, Devin Wenig has tweeted this 60 second campaign video!

Click on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOdwlff_2Zs&feature=youtu.be

“I loved the colours of the Apple logo and the fun movement of the Twister game and somehow that gave me the idea of eBay. The overlapping colours were designed to convey the sense of community on eBay.” —- Elissa Davis

With more than 25 million sellers, 100 million users, eBay is going strong globally. The logo reflects the strong bond between the people across the global who joined together, trusting nothing but everything else about eBay’s services, customers, sellers and products. This isn’t easy! It isn’t easy to build this incredible trust. It is the place where selling and buying has become so easy and enjoyable. It is eBay, the iconic brand!

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