In 1995, Pierre Omidyar, a Silicon Valley software engineer, created website so his girlfriend could find other collectors of Pez dispensers (Avis, 2002). To his surprise, droves of people came to the site wanting to trade various types of collectibles. He slowly expanded the Web site, eventually quitting his job to accommodate the overwhelming pressures of his new and successful site, which was generating thousands of dollars in fees per day.

Today, eBay is one of the highest traffic sites on the Internet, with 41 million members around the world (Avis, 2002). The site generates about 1.5 billion page views per month. EBay provides a source of worldwide communication to buyers and sellers from all markets. A

In a very broad sense, communication means to give or exchange information. For businesses or individuals selling a product, in order to prosper, they must communicate with potential customers. EBay provides its customers with an online method of communicating and selling, in order to enhance its customers’ ability to sell to a broad, global base of potential buyers.

EBay is an exciting, innovative, and competitive market for communication.

According to eBay CEO Meg Whitman, eBay’s main goal is "to build the world's largest online trading platform where practically anyone can trade practically anything (Schonfeld, 2002)." This goal has been realized, as eBay has come closer than any other creation of the Internet boom to realizing the promise of the virtual corporation. The company has no inventory, no warehouses, and no sales force, yet it is successful and profitable.

The sole purpose of eBay is to provide a communication link (Avis, 2002). It is a place where buyers and sellers from around the world can meet to trade. However, rather than existing as a huge classified ad site, every sale is done through an auction. Over a given period, anyone with an interest in the product that is being sold can enter a bid. The bids are shown in real time and at the end of the auction; the current highest bidder buys the product.

As eBay expanded to include millions of users, it has greatly enhanced the ability of individuals and companies to buys and sells products of all kinds. Today, eBay exists as an online marketplace where any item imaginable is available, for a good price.

For precisely this reason, large institutional sellers, such as the U.S. Postal Service, J.C. Penney, various government agencies, and many businesses are utilizing the power and efficiencies of selling on eBay.

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