eBay Trivia

1995 - AuctionWeb was started by Pierre Omidyar as part of a larger
personal site. He incorporated the enterprise and used the small fee he collected to finance the expansion of the site. He added a
Feedback Forum (buyers and sellers can rate each other for quality
etc.). After finding the revenue from this auction site was more
than his salary at General Magic he started working fulltime for
AuctionWeb.

The first item sold was a broken laser pointer that sold for $14

1997 – AuctionWeb was incorporated.

1998 – Changed name to eBay. The site had more than a million
registered users.

1998 – America Online and eBay America Online and eBay signed a
three-year agreement under which AOL received guaranteed payments
from eBay totaling $12 million. The new alliance secured eBay a
large potential customer base in the form of AOL members.

1998 – Hired Harvard Business School-trained Meg Whitman CEO.

People spend more time on eBay than any other online site, making it
the most popular shopping destination on the Internet. eBay is
headquartered in San Jose, California and has a second location in
Draper, Utah

The largest site for online auctions is eBay, founded 1995, with
more than 50 million registered users.

The most expensive object offered in an online auction was a oil
refinery that was offered by eBay in February 2000. There was no
bid.

In October 1999 a Gulfstream V business jet, sold for US $40
million.

$10.7 billion worth of cars were sold on eBay between July and
September 2004.

A Ferrari Enzo, one of the world's most desirable and rarest cars,
became the most expensive ever sold on eBay Motors in Europe when
bidding closed on eBay's Swiss site for over US $1,000,000 in 2004.

A Gulfstream II jet sold for $4.9 million (the eBay fee would be
over $70,000)

A 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card sold for $1.65 million

A Diamond Lake Resort, western Kentucky: $1.2 million

A. Shoeless Joe Jackson's "Black Betsy" baseball bat: $577,610

A Round of golf with Tiger Woods: $425,000

Aug. 26, 1999: A human kidney is offered on eBay. Before the auction
is taken down, bids reach $5.7 million.

All sorts of human body parts have been put up for auction - and
taken down by eBay, which prohibits
such sales.

Feb. 8, 2001: Adam Burtle of Seattle sells his soul on eBay for
$400.

EBay has a policy of not allowing souls to be sold, but Burtle's
offer was undetected until after bidding closed. Burtle is suspended
from the site.

May 25, 2001: Levi's goes shopping on eBay and picks up a pair of
its own jeans - made in the 1880s - for $46,532.

June 23, 2001: Bob Dylan's boyhood home in Duluth, Minn., sells on
eBay for $94,600.

One of the largest items ever sold was a World War II submarine sold
by a small town in New England that decided it did not need the
historical relic anymore.

In eBay.UK Lady Thatcher's Handbag sold for £103,000 and Jamie
Oliver’s scooter sold for £ 7,600

A trading card is sold every five minutes

Three cars are sold every day

A bridal gown is sold every other day. The highest viewed item was a
wedding dress being modeled by the ex-husband. Over 17 million
people looked at it and it sold for over $US 3800.

Canada was up for sale on eBay.ca for 5 days but the highest bid was
by The Sun Newspaper - $2,000. There were 14 bids. The country of
Canada…Item #2913179800 was for sale under the category of
“Everything Else: Weird Stuff: Totally Bizarre.

These are a few of the interesting facts about eBay.

Article Directory: http://www.article-tree.com

Irene Sherwood is a freelance author and has written articles covering a wide variety of subjects. For other examples of Irene's writing visit www.give-a-dollar.com for an easy quick recipe, clean joke, computer maintenance tip | ebay selling tip

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated