Try GOLD - Free
30 years of...
Daily Mirror UK
|September 03, 2025
From laser pens and Beanie Babies to millionaires and their Ferraris...
ITS first sale was a broken laser pointer which went for just over a tenner, or £11.06 to be exact.
Since then, eBay has exploded into a global auction site, with 134 million users.
Marking its 30th anniversary today, the little website that first launched as AuctionWeb now boasts 2.4 billion listings and has made thousands of ordinary people millionaires - including more than 1,000 in the UK.
Starting life as a giant garage sale, eBay's budding entrepreneurs quickly spotted retail opportunities for all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff.
The auction site's early days coincided with the mid-1990s Beanie Baby craze. Eager collectors flocked to the site to buy and sell their rare examples.
Founder Pierre Omidyar became a billionaire just three years after launching eBay, when it went public.
Not bad for something he started "as an experiment, as a side hobby basically, while I had my day job".
Omidyar remembers being baffled by the site's first sale, but was assured by the buyer that he really liked to collect broken laser pointers.
This story is from the September 03, 2025 edition of Daily Mirror UK.
Subscribe to Magzter GOLD to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 10,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
MORE STORIES FROM Daily Mirror UK
Daily Mirror UK
CLANGER TO BANGER
Unflappable Gab is living the redeem (again) as he picks himself up to blast back after blunder
2 mins
January 05, 2026
Daily Mirror UK
JESY'S TWINS AGONY
Star reveals baby girls have rare condition and may never walk
1 min
January 05, 2026
Daily Mirror UK
Wolfson needs to put UK and Ukraine first
Labour has criticised Tory Shadow Attorney General Lord Wolfson for acting as a lawyer for Roman Abramovich, the sanctioned Russian billionaire and former Chelsea FC owner. You say...
1 mins
January 05, 2026
Daily Mirror UK
Sleep, fitness, mood, even fertility... they all track them so which smart ring is for you?
Ditch the smartwatch, rings are the thing! HANNA GEISSLER road-tested the must-have new wearable health tech
5 mins
January 05, 2026
Daily Mirror UK
FURY IS HUNGRY TO PUNCH MORE MEN IN THE FACE
TYSON FURY has announced he will return to boxing in 2026 after claiming he has nothing better to do than \"punch men in the face for a living\".
2 mins
January 05, 2026
Daily Mirror UK
Union wants firms to help tackle stress
UNIONS are calling for action to tackle excessive workloads after a study suggested the country is facing a stress crisis.
1 min
January 05, 2026
Daily Mirror UK
GOT, GOT, NEED
How do you celebrate becoming double world champ and banking £lm? By splashing out on football trading cards, of course
3 mins
January 05, 2026
Daily Mirror UK
Families are hell...but as long as there's love, then it's happy days
Actor on changing times
3 mins
January 05, 2026
Daily Mirror UK
AJ mourns with his pals' families
Boxer attends funerals of friends killed in car smash he survived
1 min
January 05, 2026
Daily Mirror UK
CAL'S BIG CALL COULD TILT TITLE
McFarlane steps in to give Gunners major boost at top
2 mins
January 05, 2026
Listen
Translate
Change font size
