The Businesses That eBay Built

For someone who's interested in starting a retail business, I can't think of a more perfect incubator than eBay(EBAY Quote).

The auction site, now in its 12th year, is the world's most robust online marketplace, serving up more than $44 billion in sales every year. Nearly a quarter of all Internet purchases occur on eBay, and every day a worldwide audience of millions visits the site.

eBay can be credited with creating thousands -- and more likely millions -- of jobs over the last decade by enabling people who once worked for someone else to go into business for themselves. In fact, more than two million Americans supplement their salaries by selling on eBay. Of those, 724,000 draw most, if not all, of their income from their online auction sales.

I've spent the last four years studying the eBay economy and interviewing the people who are driving it. My goal: Teach others how to sell profitably on eBay by following the examples of the site's most successful veterans.

In The eBay Billionaires' Club: Exclusive Secrets for Building an Even Bigger and More Profitable Online Business, my second book about eBay and my third about e-commerce, I profile a dozen of eBay's top merchants. Individually, their sales range from six figures to many millions annually. Many of the companies profiled in this book are Titanium PowerSellers -- the eBay equivalent of the Fortune 100. Each business featured in this book is also a member of an exclusive trade association for professional eBay sellers, a group that collectively sells more than $1 billion in merchandise annually and completes 70 million eBay transactions each year.

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