Here's a wake up call fresh from the MrMarkets bakery. E-Bay is a company young to the world of being a public company. You better bet it is. I don't think so. Let's get our barings, folks.
People post items they want to sell and wait for people to reply with bids.
The bidding process continues until the seller accepts a bid or decides to not sell the item. E-Bay is sitting on a very valuable business because it is full of people comfortable enough with online purchases that they'll post their possessions for sale on the net. But E-Bay doesn't make its money exploiting their users' interests. That means I will not accept any bids below that amount. So E-Bay is an auction company.