There were few buyers in her hometown of 54,000, and prices were low. She started putting her wares up for auction on eBay last year and suddenly found herself part of the global marketplace. Checks have been pouring in from as far away as Iceland, Egypt and China. Now I can sell 15 items in an hour. Welcome to the eBay revolution.
Auction sites are one of the hottest corners of cyberspace right now.
But other Internet heavyweights are hard at work trying to break off some of the market for themselves. Yahoo, the most visited site on the Web, introduced its own auctions last year. Industrial players are also getting in on the online-auction craze, driving down the cost of equipment by bidding to buy it directly from suppliers. Global auctions are the kind of ideal market Adam Smith could only have dreamed of. And buyers are assured the price isn't too high because they get to choose the lowest one being offered by any seller in the world.