10 interesting facts about eBay
eBay has been around for years and has become an everyday tool used to shop and auction things you don't want online.
But do you know how long eBay has been?
Here are 10 interesting facts about eBay that will make you want to uncover some of the mysteries everyone has listed online.
eBay was launched in 1995.
eBay was created by an Iranian-American computer programmer named Pierre Omidyar, on September 3, 1995.
At the age of 28, he is designing the code for an online auction site originally called Auction Web.
The Auction Web is a side project, to entertain him with his daily work.
It wasn't until the site got too much traffic that he decided to start a business and rebrand as eBay.
The first item sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer.
The broken laser pointer was an item placed around Omidyar's home, which he thought he would use to inspect the site.
During the first week, he listed it as $ 1 and it's no surprise it didn't sell.
So he re-listed it for the same price for the second week.
This time around, a bidding war took place and it sold for $ 14.83.
He contacted the seller to check if they recognized what they auctioned, and it turned out they were a broken laser pen collector!
The British use eBay the most.
Yes, the British use eBay the most in the world.
The UK also buys more items per month per capita than any other country in the world.
This may be because the Britons enjoy a bidding war, what better than being able to bid from your own house!
The first item sold in the UK was the CD.
CD of a German rock band called The Scorpions.
eBay was launched in the UK until 1999, 4 years after it was founded in the United States.
In 2008, the first person to score a response score of 1 million.
There have been many times, but the first person to score a 1 million response score was Jack Sheng.
After 8 years of sales, on November 13, 2008, Sheng became the first person to achieve this rating.
In recognition of his success, eBay even made a special shooting star logo to put with his name on eBay.
Even better, eBay named one of their conference rooms after him.
After that, he managed to double the number of his reviews to 2 million in the next 18 months.
Even NASA used eBay!
Right!
In 2002, NASA had some problems with stopping supplying the replacement parts they needed.
So they turned to eBay in the hope of finding some old parts for their machines.
Due to discontinuation, they used eBay as a tool to search for sellers who might have listed items or parts from the same machine.
eBay starts with a yellow interface.
The sometimes blinding background and dazzling yellow color was the original design for eBay's interface, and it was used up until the site turned white.
Due to a lot of complaints after turning white, eBay respects the customer's choice, so they change it back to bright yellow.
But with slow passive aggressiveness over time, they fade in yellow until they return to white.
This is expected that the customer will not notice a gradual change over time.
The most expensive item ever sold on eBay was a yacht.
Over the years there have been many items, even jokes, sometimes up to millions, but not as many as this item.
The 123.4 meter long super yacht designed by Frank Mulder sells for a whopping $ 170 million.
Yachts have their own cinema, gym helipads and more with top features.
Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich is the lucky winner in this bid.
Thanks to eBay, a new species has been discovered.
In 2006, a sea urchin was added to the list after being found in the Pacific Ocean.
This isn't the first time an item has been listed in the wrong category or has been identified as incorrect.
An English scientist and zoologist named Simon Coppard stumbled across the hedgehog and realized from the photo that this was something new.
At the time, Coppard was working with the Museum of Natural History in London and was able to confirm from an uploaded photo that the species was unidentified, turning it into a new discovery of sea urchins he placed.
There is no limit to the number of items that can be sold at one time.
It is unclear the exact number of items that could be listed on eBay before the server crashed.
But the record for many items listed, bundling multiple sellers together at a given time, is 800 million items.
Their sales process is one of the simplest online platforms accessible to most people.
With this huge amount, eBay does not generate an annual report on the number of items sold within a year.
eBay will remain an auction house's paradise, where auctions can happen right from your own home.
This convenience is one of the reasons it has become such a popular platform over the years.
So when you have some free time, why not watch the weird and wonderful things you can find for sale on this virtual auction house.