Why Has the eBay Auction – and Other Internet Auction Sites – Grown So Large So Quickly?

The eBay auction site was the first of its kind and really wasn’t started that long ago. eBay pioneered the internet auction in 1995 when Pierre Omidyar started what was then called Auctionweb from his living room. His wife was an avid Pez collector and the eBay auction site was started to help reach other collectors. The internet auction has since grown into a worldwide marketplace where almost anything is available to buy or sell. They've even branched out into cars with eBay Motors, the eBay auto auction.

The eBay auction format has given both buyers and sellers a huge advantage over traditional ways of buying and selling. Items are available from around the world to people buying through an internet auction. This marketplace eBay helped create gives buyers and sellers huge opportunities that were unreachable before the internet.

How Has the eBay Auction and the Internet Auction in General Changed the Way People Buy?

With the eBay auction, you can comparison shop at your convenience and you can bid as much or as little as you feel an item is worth. The buyer has a great deal of power compared to a traditional “bricks & mortar” environment. At the same time, the internet auction format gives sellers the opportunity to create a bidding frenzy that can sometimes bring much higher bids than expected.

The eBay auction site also gives collectors much greater reach. For someone who collects rare items or oddities, the local opportunities to find these items are few and far between. Through an internet auction, you have the chance to find these items from almost anywhere in the world. Whether it’s the one item you need to complete a collection, or something sentimental from your childhood, someone somewhere probably has one to sell on eBay or one of the other computer auctions.

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