For many years there has been a rumor that eBay was started as a marketplace to sell Pez dispensers. However, the founder, Pierre Omidyar created the website as a place for all kinds of items to be sold. Today we know the site as a place to buy almost anything, but eBay is particularly known as a place to buy collectibles and antiques. EBay was one of the first websites to prove that people did want to buy things online sight unseen- a fact which many people at the time doubted. The site really took off in 1998 after becoming a publicly traded company in 1998.

The first transaction that took place on eBay (in 1995) was the purchase of a broken laser pointer of all things! The buyer, a Canadian man named Mark Fraser, has since told the story of why he was buying such an unusual object. The video was shared at the 20th anniversary eBay summit in 2015.

Have a look at the interesting story behind the first object ever sold on eBay in the video below.
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