eBay is the place to buy and sell just about anything. It’s one of the largest marketplaces in the world with over 15,000 employees and 59 company acquisitions over the course of two decades. Within the past few years, eBay has grown into one of the worlds’ largest companies and is listed on the Fortune 500 companies in America. From the humble beginning at Pierre Omidyar’s couch, eBay has grown into one of the most recognized brands globally.
How it Works
The process is quite simple: the seller lists her merchandise on her account according to the category of the commodity and determines the purchase format to be either ‘Auction’, ‘Buy It Now’ or both. Auctions allow the buyers to bid for a period of time. The highest bidder within the timeframe set by the seller gets the item.
On ‘Buy It Now’, the set amount is the amount the buyer must pay. Once an item has been paid for, the shipping address will be disclosed to the seller. Once an item is shipped the seller is to update the tracking details. In the case that an item does not meet the expectations as posted on the listing, the buyer can file a complaint.
Major Facts about eBay
eBay was known as AuctionWeb before being changed in 1997. Auction Web was just but part of the four companies owned by Omidyar. The other companies were a travel site, a personal shopper website, and an Ebola virus site.
The very first item to be listed on eBay was a broken laser pointer in 1995. It was later bought for $14.83 by a random collector. Within the same week of listing the laser on eBay, Pierre sold an autographed Marky Mark boxer for $400, superman’s lunch box for $22 and a Toyota Tercel.
The most expensive purchase on eBay was a jet costing $4.9 million in 2001. Tyler Jet and Tyler Jet Motorsports sold the Gulfstream 2 jet making it the most expensive purchase on eBay.
59% of all purchases are made on the Buy It Now version. Buyers prefer to make purchases on the Buy It Now option rather than the Auction-style.
Jack Sheng is the most successful eBay seller with a total of 2 million feedback score by 2017. By 2008, he had received one million feedback score. Due to his success, he was labeled a ‘Shooting Star’ and even has a conference room in the company labeled after him.
There’s an eBay classifieds pet application where one can adopt pets of all kind. The pet classifieds became a reality after eBay acquired and incorporated the site was known as Kijiji a couple of years ago. It was a place where one could find pets near them based on the region. Kijiji is a Swahili word meaning town or village.