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•Four Greatest Ways to Become a Multi-Millionaire on the Internet 137

Idea 75 – An Internet company built on a sweetie
dispenser – what am I bid? (eBay)

If you wanted to buy the company in question at the May 1999 share price you

would have needed $24 billion. At that time, we were quite used to the fact that e-

commerce-based ideas produced companies worth billions of dollars very shortly

after they opened for business. But eBay Inc. did have one exception to the rules

other Internet companies seemed to obey. It was already making money. In late

2002 they estimated their sales for that year would come in at between $1.17 and

$1.18 billion. They have bought PayPal, the online payment company,

and have remained profitable since 1999. eBay Inc. does
Pierre Omidyar got the idea from his wife, who was a keen collector have one

of Pez containers. These are the little sweet containers made of plastic exception to
which dispense one sweet when you flick the top. They come in a great the rules other
variety of designs and have for some time been collectible, in the same Internet com-
way, one could say, as cigarette cards were or phone cards are. Why could panies seem to
she not find fellow collectors on the Web?
obey. It is
Pierre knew that people needed a central location to buy and sell unique already mak-
items and to meet other users with similar interests. He set up eBay to meet ing money.
this need and created the world’s largest online trading community. It is, in

effect, a new market entirely – one-to-one trading on an auction basis.

Individuals are the target users, not big businesses. There are now 1000 catego-

ries in antiques, coins, toys, stamps, jewellery and so on. In the words of the compa-

ny’s Web page, ‘Users can find the unique and the interesting on eBay – everything

from chintz china to chairs, teddy bears to trains and furniture to figurines.’

The reason for the success is the number of buyers and sellers eBay has managed

to register. Plainly, buyers go where they feel they will get the most choice, and sellers

where they think they will find the most buyers and therefore the best price. During

the first quarter of 1999 the number of registered users went up by about 75% from

2.1 million to 3.8 million. This huge starting point made growth at eBay a self-fulfill-

ing prophecy and, by 2002, the number of active users had risen to 24.2 million.