online selling – a brief history

BY J E F F M U L L I N S

ONLINE SELLING – A BRIEF HISTORY

• During the 1990’s, the internet was slowly taking off• Cyberspace

revolutionised the consumer society• Between 1994-95,

we saw the emergence of two websites

• Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos• Began from very

humble beginnings• Business took off

slowly, as the internet was still in its infancy at the time• Started off exclusively

retailing books

• In 1999, Amazon established a competitor to eBay in the form of amazon.com Auctions• Today it retails electronics, games, music and

movies as well as its core business of books • In 2010 it generated revenue in excess of $34

billion

• In October 1997, the internet consisted of only 100 million pages worldwide• In March 2000, this grew to 304 million• Amazon’s growth coincided with the development

of internet

EBAY

• Founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995• Initially known as

‘AuctionWeb’• Started off selling

mainly low value collectibles• Operated on an

Insertion fee, as well as a commission fee (at end of auction)

• First item sold was a broken laser pointer pen• Jeffrey Skoll was

recruited in1996• Auction hosting

also skyrocketed to 2,000,000 in this year

• The website received investment in 1997 and subsequently changed its name to ‘eBay’• Meg Whitman joined in 1998• In September 1998, the company went on the

public stock exchange• 1999 saw the acquisition of both Butterfield and

Kruse International, as well as Billpoint• Website experienced a crash in June of 1999

• The early noughties saw a competitor to Billpoint known as ‘Paypal’• eBay acquired the

business in 2002 and phased out Billpoint

INTERNET SELLING TODAY

• Today, it is the primary form of advertising• Still proves a barrier to older generations• It has stolen a lot of advertising revenue from

newspapers and other publications

• Popular online selling websites in Ireland today include donedeal.ie, carzone.ie and myhome.ie• An increasing

amount of initial enquiries adverts on these websites are handled by e-mail

• DoneDeal has become one of the most popular online selling sites in Ireland• Launched in 2005, it has significantly grown

during the recession and presently has traffic of around 135,000