Ebay as we know it. . . . .

Activity 12 - Write a short document about Ebay and it's major purposes.

• Ebay is the world's largest global online market place where people can trade anything from Books to Private jets.
• It was founded in september of 1995. 
• Ebay's target audience are regular people, small businesses and large business all over the world.
• The auction process works using three methods; 

1. Auction-style listings allow the seller to offer one or more items for sale for a specified number of days. The seller can establish a reserve price.
2. Fixed price format allows the seller to offer one or more items for sale at a Buy It Now price. Buyers who agree to pay that price win the auction immediately without submitting a bid.
3. Fixed price format with best offer allows the seller to accept best offers. If a buyer submits a best offer, the seller either rejects or accepts the best offer. If the best offer is not satisfactory, a seller may submit a counter offer to the buyer. Best offer is not available for auction style listings. In addition, best offer is not available in every category. Sellers also meet specific requirements in order to sell with best offer.

• You have to pay E-bay a monthly service fee for your ebay store, and you will pay the fees when you list items and sell items.
• The Benefits of Ebay are that you can leave feedback when an item is bought, giving the seller a score of one to five stars (five being the highest rating and one being the lowest rating) over shipping, communication, product description etc. This enables other users to be aware before buying an item from the same seller. Also, you can list items that can run for months at a time, which can make a lot more sense than running an auction that will and is seven or 10 days.  More so, you can simply shop for items (anything and everything) within the comforts of your own home at a relatively cheap price.
• The Disadvantages of using Ebay is that some people are set out to scam others. They advertise an item which doesn't exist just to receive payment.  Subsequently, it is then hard to even leave negative feedback for the very worse sellers, for fear that they will retaliate and leave a black mark against your own account. International postage costs are also often disregarded but can be massively costly and as well as shipping taking a long time.

Overall, whatever you want to buy, whether it's large or small, cheap or expensive, everyday or just plain weird, the chances are you can find it on eBay.