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Word: worlds (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
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...industry that's all of four years old, the dollar amounts are staggering: $4.5 billion in sales this year, and an estimated $15.5 billion by 2001. eBay is the dominant player in the online-auction world, with 7.7 million registered users bidding on some 3 million items. But other Internet heavyweights are hard at work trying to break off some of the market for themselves. Amazon.com added an auction site last spring. (It appears to be starting slowly; as of October, eBay had more than five times as many visitors as Amazon.com's auction site). Yahoo, the most visited site...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Inside eBay.com: The Attic of e | 12/27/1999 | See Source »

Global auctions are the kind of ideal market Adam Smith could only have dreamed of. Sellers are, at least in theory, guaranteed a price that isn't too low: they get to sell to the highest bidder anywhere in the world. And buyers are assured the price isn't too high because they get to choose the lowest one being offered by any seller in the world. Location becomes unimportant. You're not penalized for being a seller stuck in low-traffic, low-price Bismarck or a buyer shopping in high-cost Manhattan. Auctions also minimize transaction costs ("friction...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Inside eBay.com: The Attic of e | 12/27/1999 | See Source »

...will be more profound. Online auctions may destabilize the notion of a fixed price, leading buyers and sellers in all kinds of transactions to negotiate more over what items should cost. And they are likely to further erode the economic barriers between nations, speeding the way to a single world market. The full effects of eBay's hyperefficient, banish-the-middleman revolution haven't yet been felt, but one thing is clear: the pre-Internet model of buying and selling is going, going...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Inside eBay.com: The Attic of e | 12/27/1999 | See Source »

Flea-market aficionados insist that eBay is doing a more abstract kind of damage: it's destroying the pleasures of the offline collectibles world. Al Hoff, author of Thrift Score and collector of "everything but Levolor blinds," says eBay has changed the atmosphere in flea markets and thrift stores. She now comes across entrepreneurs who are trolling the aisles looking for items they can resell for a higher price online. "The code of ethics used to be that you bought things for yourself," she notes. And she objects that eBay's efficiency is making it harder for bargain hunters like...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Inside eBay.com: The Attic of e | 12/27/1999 | See Source »

...sticking with its core mission of consumer-to-consumer auctions but is also working to expand its reach dramatically. In October, eBay announced a new venture: eBay Great Collections, a new area on the site for antiques and fine collectibles. Along with the acquisition of Butterfield & Butterfield, the world's fourth largest auction house, Great Collections marks a move by eBay into the high-end market. (The average sale on eBay is currently about $40.) eBay has also begun rolling out local eBays, starting with eBay Los Angeles. The idea is to provide a local market for big items like...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Inside eBay.com: The Attic of e | 12/27/1999 | See Source »

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