Research Topic

With this course focused on the internet; I decided that my research topic would be on Ebay, and how it has effected the economy and other parts of the retail market. Ebay flew under the radar of most economists back in 1997, but now finding someone who is not familiar with ebay is not as easy. Ebay as a company has grown exponentially and their stock price and overall volume of sales reflects just how much they have grown. But not only have they grown as a company, they have completely changed the way people purchase products on the internet.

Shopping on the internet is still a fairly recent innovation, and boy has it changed over the last 15 years. It is fair to say that anyone who is shopping online would like an alternative to paying full retail price to online retailers. And Ebay offered just that, an alternative medium to purchase the same products avaialable on the internet. As more people realized that they could find almost anything they were looking for on Ebay, the website soared.

Ebay now has more auctions than ever, and it has even developed a "Ebay Store" for its sellers to have an option of selling their products on an online retail shop rather than always waiting for an auctin to end. As ebay grew, so did the selection of things consumers can buy. There was a studyin in australia, and it found that 2500 Aussies make their living from ebay alone. Ebay has gone worldwide, and it is not slowing down anytime soon.