It has become known as The Worlds Online Marketplace; certainly an apt description. The stated objective of the founders of ebay is to provide a global trading platform where practically anyone can trade, buy or sell practically anything. Mission accomplished!ierre Omidyar wrote the internet code that was to become ebay over a long weekend.

The site was first called Auction Web and was launched on Monday September 4 1995. The site was later renamed ebay. Jeffery Skoll joined ebay in 1996. Ebay was already a profitable enterprise. Meg Whitman was brought in during the year of 1998 and still runs the company today as its president and CEO. EBays stock was first offered publicly in September of 1998.

Today just about everything one can imagine is being bought and sold on ebay. It is the first place that most people go to shop online. In the beginning ebay was mostly used for buying and selling collectables but that is no longer the case.

Items both new and used are found in abundance everything from old baseball cards to used cars. People from every industrialized country in the world buy and sell on ebay. All that a person needs to become a customer or a vendor on ebay is a personal computer, an internet connection and a buyers or sellers account on ebay and gain access to a world wide market place.

Ebay bought Paypal for 1.5 billion dollars and made monetary transactions even more safe and secure in July of 2002.

What to Sell on ebay:

You most likely know somebody who makes their living selling stuff on eBay or if not a living at least extra money. You have probably thought about selling on eBay yourself but just couldnt think of what you would have to offer for sale.

It might not look like it but the supply of junque in your attic is limited. Actually eBay can help you with that problem. You can find out what the hottest selling items are and what items are going to be hot.

Success can often be achieved by simply being in the right place at the right time.

*Merchandising Calendar Get advance notice of upcoming seasonal promotions and learn about the items that will be spotlighted on the eBay home page.

*Hot Items by Category Hot; Very HotSuper Hot! Find out which categories and products are selling like hotcakes.

*eBay Pulse Track trends, hot picks, and other cool stuff: top searches and most watched items.

*eBay Marketplace Research Find upto 90 days of historical information on completed items as well as active listings data, including average start prices, average sold prices and top keyword searches.

*Catalogs Find out whats new and hot each season as featured in the eBay catalog. There are four catalogs per year; Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.

When you have the inside track on knowing what will be the hottest selling items it takes the guess work out of deciding what to sell.

The next step is locating items that you can buy at wholesale prices and sell at retail prices. This is much easier than you think. You can even find drop shippers who will package and ship items that you sell directly to your customers. You do not have to purchase or store inventory.