eBay

Wikipedia defines e-commerce as:

 the activity of buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet.

There are various websites where buying and selling of products is done. One of the best known sites of this type is eBay.

Many people have heard the story about how eBay was started by a young man in love who wanted to help his fiance build her Pez dispenser collection. The young man had the idea to put the search online and voila! eBay was born. Although this is a nice story, it isn’t true. This story was a corporate lie generated to bring traffic to the site.

eBay was started by a 30 year old man named Pierre Omidyar on Labor Day 1995 and was originally named AuctionWeb.  AuctionWeb later changed its name to eBay. Echo Bay is the name the founder originally wanted for the name change but upon a check with the State of California, it was discovered the name Echo Bay was already in use by another business. Rather than give up the name Echo Bay entirely, it was shortened to eBay.

The first thing ever sold on eBay was not a Pez dispenser, but rather a broken laser pointer for $14. When first started AuctionWeb was free. As traffic to the site grew Mr. Omidyar’s Internet Service Provider (ISP) began to charge more money, so this charge was passed on to eBay users as a listing fee for sellers. The fees have continued to this day to pay the company overhead.

As I move along the library shelves I find myself reading more and more about eCommerce. I have to admit that I’m not the most tech savvy person ever, however I have come across many books that explain buying and selling online in language that even I can understand. Topics range from answering common questions, explaining how to register and get started in the often exciting world of eCommerce, explaining point systems, and using PayPal.

For this particular post I checked out several books about eBay. I highly recommend these books if you too would like to learn to navigate eBay or you would just like to learn more about it. These are a couple of the most recent books I’ve checked out:

There are many more of these types of books available at the Fulton County Public Library. I encourage all of you to read these types of books even if you are a long time eBay user (or other similar site). You will definitely learn something new!

Have you ever heard the Pez dispenser story and if so did you know it was a lie? Are you or have you ever been an eBay user?