1.1 - eBay - Activity 12

eBay is the most used and most famous online auction site in the world. The purpose of eBay is to provide a service where anyone (over 18) can buy or sell anything! One of eBay's goals is "to provide our users with not just an easy way to buy, but an easy way to find," eBay's user system allows people from all across the globe to sell almost anything so people can often buy things that have been discontinued or hard to find in shops. I see that the target audience is those who are 18 and over because under 18's are not allowed to join due to possibly being naive and careless with thier accounts, however because eBay can sell anything (as long as it's legal) i think that anyone can be the target audience, including those under 18.
The auction system on eBay is separated into two catagories (1) Shops (2) Private Sellars. The eBay shops provide mostly 'New Products' as they are coming from a shop or storage area straight from the factory, and the buying option is a "Buy It Now" option only, which means that the customer does not bid on the item and just pays for it immediatley at a set price via PayPal. The Private Sellars sell thier own personal items which are mostly 'Used Products' and are mostly "Auction Only" which means that items are bidded on over a selected amount of time.
eBay fulfils its purposes well as it is very efficiant and raises few problems. It has over 15 Million users in the uk alone, and 212 million worldwide. Around 105 million items on sale at one time, and aproximately 6 million added each day. eBay is the worlds biggest online market place. The benifits of eBay is that it is a cheap service to sell unwanted clutter, and you can find most hard-to-find items. The limitations are that you have to pay a fee to upload items, and because it is so big it atracts scammers.
eBay is so succsesful because it is very efficiant, gained a good reputation, is cheap to use, and allows people to find things that may usually be hard to buy.

http://www.ebay.com.au