AuctionWeb

AuctionWeb was an online auction platform launched in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar in the San Francisco Bay Area. It operated as a peer-to-peer marketplace that allowed individuals to list items for sale and buyers to bid in open auctions. Listings spanned a wide range of goods, including collectibles, electronics, and vintage items, with a simple, user-driven interface designed to facilitate direct transactions between buyers and sellers.

In 1997 the site was renamed eBay as the platform expanded beyond a hobby project into a full-scale commercial marketplace. The rebranding reflected rapid growth in users, listings, and international reach, and it helped attract investment and partnerships. Over time, eBay introduced additional features such as enhanced search, seller feedback, and later options like Buy It Now in various markets, reinforcing the shift from strictly auction-based trading to a hybrid marketplace model.

AuctionWeb is widely regarded as a precursor to modern consumer-to-consumer e-commerce. It demonstrated that individuals could effectively trade goods over the internet with relatively low barriers to entry, catalyzing the development of subsequent online marketplaces and shaping the broader e-commerce landscape. The name AuctionWeb is remembered primarily as the origin of what would become eBay, whose core model—user-generated listings, public bidding, and trust-building tools—owes its roots to this early platform. Notably, early reports recount that one of the first sales on AuctionWeb involved a broken laser pointer, illustrating the disruptive potential of online auctions.