eBay facts for kids

eBay is a website. It is a place for online auctions. Anybody can sell almost anything they want there. People can buy many things there as well.

People have to send what they sell themselves, usually using mail. Some items may be collected by the buyer such as items to large or heavy to post. Buyers can transfer the money in any way they want as long as the sellers accept payments made that way. A lot of people use PayPal to transfer the money. PayPal is owned by the same people as eBay. Margaret Whitman was the CEO of eBay from 1998 to 2008.

History

eBay was started in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar. It was first called Auctionweb. The name 'eBay' came later when he tried to register a domain name for his planned name EchoBay. It was already taken so he shortened the name to 'eBay'.

Statistics

Millions of items are bought on eBay every day. It is often very cheap to list an item on eBay. Total costs are usually below ordinary auction house costs. Many people look at others' items because they are interested in them.

Images for kids

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  Pierre Omidyar, founder and chairman of eBay

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  eBay North First Street satellite office campus (home to PayPal)

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  eBay Express logo

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  eBay Office in Toronto, Canada

See also

In Spanish: EBay para niños