Title: Ebay Audience: Unknowing Internet Users who want to buy or sell something online for the first time Main Points: Ebay is Fast, Free, and Easy to Use Ebay is Safe for new users Ebay saves money, time, and effort 1. Ebay, the world's #1 auction internet site, was founded in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar when his girlfriend who was a big collector of Pez, wanted to find someone online to trade with, or to acquire other Pez dispensers, so Pierre thought, "Wouldn't it be great to have something where people could buy and sell online easily without any hassle" so Ebay was born. A huge misconception about Ebay is that is it hard to use and is often confusing. All you need is a little patience, some basic Ebay lingo, awareness, and a little bit of computer skill. To become registered on Ebay, outside of a few personal information questions, all you need is a valid credit card and an email address. Email addresses are available free at many websites such as Yahoo.com, Gmail.com, and etc. And you'll need to be at least 18 years of age. On the front of the home page of Ebay.com, The first thing you will notice is a message that says, "Hello! Sign In or Register", You will click the "Register" button and you will be taken to a webpage where you will need to enter your first and last name, street address, city, state, postal code, country, telephone number, date of birth, and email address. There is also a user agreement and privacy policy that you must agree to which states that you agree not to be obscene, violate the law, share your eBay account, or harm other eBay members. EBay also states in this that you must abide to these terms or EBay has the right at any time, or reduce your privileges on eBay, that EBay is NOT liable for any listings that may violate the law. EBay also tells you that they DO collect your person information, but they DO not use it to send you spam mail, although they will send you catalog. You can either agree to these terms, or click the check box, or you can close the webpage. Once you click the box, you will be asked to choose a unique user ID, once this is done, you will be asked to provide your credit card information to verify you are over 18, although you will NOT be charged. Once this process is complete, You will receive an email at the address you listed, with a verification link, once this link is clicked. you will be asked to input a unique password with letters and numbers to be secure and that it's not easy to figure out. You will also be asked a "secret question" which generally is "What is your mother's maiden name?" that something ONLY you would know. It is recommended both of these be written down. Once this process is complete, you may log into eBay by going back to the ebay.com homepage, and clicking on the "Sign In" link. The first step from here is entering your user ID in the top box, and in the bottom box, to enter your password. You will be able to retrieve your user ID if it is forgotten by clicking the "Forgot your ID?" box below and you will be asked to input your email address and then re-enter it down in the bottom box, EBay will proceed to email you your user ID where you will need to make a new password and put in the answer to your secret question. If you forget your password, you can click the "Forgot your Password?" box and you will be asked to enter your user ID, and you will need to answer your secret question, and eBay will email you your user ID and password and it will need to be changed. From this point on, you can choose to stay signed in at all times, although this is NOT recommended because anyone who uses your computer can simply hop on eBay at any time, and they will be logged your username. Once logged in, you will be taken back to the original Ebay.com homepage, but you will be logged in your username which is displayed at the top. There are many things you can do from here, You will notice a row of images that say, "Buy”, "Sell”, "My eBay", "Community" , and "Help" If you're interested in buying something on ebay, you will click the buy link and begin your quest. From here you can either specifically put what you want to search for in the search box, or it will give you a list of all the categories on ebay, starting with Antiques and ending with “Bizarre” for items that don’t have a category. Once you enter the item or thing you want to search for, you can either have it search all of the categories, or search just a specific one by clicking on the drop down menu and selecting what category you wanted. When the first time you type in a word, or item, you will be taken to a page where it lists all the categories that the item is available in, and it also lists all the auctions that are listed with that item’s name in it. For example, if you’re looking for a car, you type in car, and you will be presented with a car in ebay motors, which is used to sell car parts or cars themselves, or you will be presented with regular ebay which sells all kinds of different things for cars, or toy model cars, after these categories you are shown eBay stores, which are ready to buy items at a set price although most of ebay is bidding against people. Under this, is Gallery items, which are just items listed with pictures and along with their current prices, under this are the small categories that only have little to no entries and finally under this, you are given with search refinements, which suggests other things you can search to help you find more specifically what you want. When you click on the “search” button again, and you refine your search, you will be taken to the auction pages themselves. On the right side of the screen, When searching for “Porsche” you can limit your search to the make, model, or years of the car itself. Ebay also provides you with “matching categories” to refine your search even more so it will be easier to find exactly what you’re looking for. And finally under that you have an array of options. You can search where the car is located, “Worldwide, North America,