How can one write about the Internet without experimenting with eBay? Coincidentally, The Wall Street Journal had a front page article on eBay on Thursday (February 26) by Nick Wingfield. I would suggest you read this, but that cannot happen online unless you are a paid subscriber --- of course grab the paper edition if available.

Back to my experiences. I just sold three golf clubs --- the sales closed a few hours ago. It was a great experience. Interestingly I received 20 emails on the last day of the sale period relating to a variety of questions that potential bidders had about the clubs. All the purchasers used PayPal to pay for their purchases.

Many readers might have used eBay and treat my comments as naive or say, "Where have you been?" And with good reason. The WSJ had a chart in the aforementioned article indicating that there were almost 300 million auction and fixed-priced listings on eBay in 2003 (not to mention 95 million registered users, of whom about 430,000 are full- and part-time sellers [according to Wingfield]).

eBay might very well be the best example of one of my favorite themes --- "growing business online." I wonder how many of the 430,000 sellers mentioned above are in business for themselves for the first time and or sell on eBay as a part-time business? eBay is a great business story. But one of the important aspects of this story is the opportunity that eBay has provided for individuals to start businesses worldwide.