Assignment 3: You Are an Investment Analyst
Danthuy Huynh
Strayer University
BUS 557: Financial Accounting

Prepared for: Professor William Blix, CPA, ABD, MBA, CISA, CIA, CBA
03/18/2013

• History of Amazon versus eBay • In 1994, Jeff Bezos started Amazon out of his home garage in Washington. Nick Hanauer, a businessman believed in Bezos’s business plans and invested $40,000 in the venture. In 1995, Amazon began to sell books online. Due to unattractive website, it caused the business to start out on a shaky ground. Tom Alburg, another businessman, decided to invest $100,000 to help the company funded a better looking website and hosting capabilities. The business took off ever since. By 1997, amazon.com generated $15.7 million in revenue. The company went public the same year. One year later, in 1998, Amazon added more items on its website. It also sells software, electronics, video games, toys, and home improvement items. Amazon attracts customers all over the country2. Amazon hasn’t released information about who their suppliers are. But it has been known that oversea suppliers manufacture thousands of Amazon.com products (Bernton, 2012). Ebay was introduced to consumers around the same time as Amazon. In 1995, Ebay’s founder Pierre Omidyar started a company called ebay from his home in San Jose, CA. It was more like an online garage sale when it started. Items on eBay are listed by categories, anyone with an eBay account can bid on any items they like. Customers can find almost everything they need on Ebay, including cars, real estate, collectibles, concert tickets, CDs, clothing, DVDs, and artwork. Jeff Skoll was the co-founder of this company and Harvard Business School graduate Meg Whitman joined them in 1998. In that same year, eBay has its initial public stock