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Sunday 30 November 2014

eBay

eBay inc  was started in 1995 by French-Iranian-American entrepreneur Pierre Omidyar.

Omidyar was 28 when he wrote the original computer code for what eventually became eBay.

Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay. By Joi 15:42, 2 August 2007. Wikipedia Commons

The site was launched on Labor Day, September 4 1995, under the more basic name “Auction Web.”

One of the first items sold on the site was a broken laser pointer. A collector of broken laser pointers bought it for $14.83.

The name 'eBay' came later when Omidyar tried to register a domain name for his planned name EchoBay. It was already taken so he shortened the name to 'eBay'.

eBay headquarters in San Jose, California

The most expensive item ever sold on eBay is the "Gigayacht", which auctioned off for $168 million in 2006.

It was estimated in 2015 that there are approximately 107 million items for sale at any given time on eBay.

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