You Can Find Almost Anything For Sale in an Online Auction – Especially on the eBay Auction Site

Over the last few years, the online auction has become a popular way to buy and sell almost anything. The eBay auction site was the first of its kind and is still the biggest by far, with almost 95 million registered users and sales of $24 billion last year. The online auction format has been adopted by many other sites, however. Some of them are competing with the eBay auction site and some of them are designed for much more specific areas of interest.

The online auction format was pioneered in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar when he started the eBay auction site from his living room in San Diego. When he first set it up, it was originally called “Auctionweb”. Legend has it that the first item ever sold on eBay was a Pez dispenser.

The Online Auction – and the eBay Auction Site in Particular – Has Changed the Way Many People Shop

Over the last nine years, the online auction has gone from a relatively obscure way to buy and sell collectibles and household treasures (or junk, depending on your point of view :-) to a mainstream marketplace that many large companies like Disney, Dell and IBM use to sell their goods. The eBay auction site provides many of these companies with an eBay Store, which they use almost like a factory outlet. Of course, for collectibles eBay is still a great place to search.

The online auction is by no means limited to inexpensive items, either. The following are the five most expensive items ever sold on the eBay auction site:

• Gulfstream II jet plane - $4.9 million
• A 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card - $1.65 million
• The Diamond Lake Resort in Western Kentucky - $1.2 million
• Shoeless Joe Jackson’s baseball bat “Black Betsy” - $577,610
• A round of golf with Tiger Woods - $425,000

Online auction users come from all walks of life – they’re no longer mostly made of up computer “geeks”. The eBay auction site has become part of our popular culture. Even people who don’t use a computer will often recognize the eBay logo.

Related Articles

• Buying and Selling Through an Online Auction Site Has Become Commonplace for Many People
• Why Are On Line Auction Sites Like eBay So Popular?

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