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eBay – “One man’s garbage is another’s gold.”
This adage took on a new depth of meaning when Pierre Omidyar, a French-born Iranian living in the Silicon Valley, posted a broken printer on a new Web site called AuctionWeb in 1995.
Meant as just a test for his fledgling site, Omidyar was astounded to find someone bid and paid $14.80 for the machine. When he contacted the buyer to make sure he knew that the machine was broken, the man replied that he did and that he was a “collector of broken laser printers.”
This initial transaction is a great example to explain why AuctionWeb – later renamed eBay – has become such a success. Most everything has value to someone and the Internet is the perfect vehicle to find those someones. From that initial $14.80 transaction, eBay grew to a $52.5 billion enterprise by 2006 and became one of the first phenomenons of the Internet age.
The concept is simple: instead of holding an auction in one static location where the potential demand for the product is narrow and limited, move it online where anyone in the world can view and bid on the product. The poster sets a time and date for when the auction will end and ships the product to the highest bidder (with the buyer paying for the delivery fee) at that time. There is also a “buy it now” feature that allows the poster to simply set a price he or she would be happy with. Buyers can skip the auction and purchase the product immediately.
And while, yes, eBay still sells its share of broken printers and novelty items – a grilled cheese sandwich with a purported image of the Virgin Mary sold for $28,000 in 2004 –eBay has a legitimate venue to buy and sell everything from books and jewelry to houses and cars while cutting out the costs of a “middle man.” In fact, in June 2008 Chrysler announced it would begin to sell its certified, pre-owned vehicles on the site.
In short, eBay has become all things for all consumers. It’s become a haven for collectors looking for hard-to-find objects and a legitimate way to sell in-demand products for a little extra profit. So don’t miss out on this 21st Century agora – if you sift long enough, you may just find some gold.
Have you bought or sold anything on eBay? Tell us about your experiences with the site.