The Perfect Store

New York Times Notable Book: “A well-told business yarn . . . A fly-on-the-wall look at how eBay got to be eBay.” —Chicago Tribune
 
When Pierre Omidyar launched a clunky website from a spare bedroom over Labor Day weekend of 1995, he wanted to see if he could use the Internet to create a perfect market. He never guessed his old-computer parts and Beanie Baby exchange would revolutionize the world of commerce.
 
In this fascinating book, Adam Cohen, the first journalist ever to get full access to the company, tells the remarkable story of eBay’s rise. He describes how eBay built the most passionate community ever to form in cyberspace and forged a business that triumphed over larger, better-funded rivals. And he explores the ever-widening array of enlistees in the eBay revolution, from a stay-at-home mom who had to rent a warehouse for her thriving business selling bubble-wrap on eBay to the young MBA who started eBay Motors (which within months of its launch was on track to sell $1 billion in cars a year), to collectors nervously bidding thousands of dollars on antique clothing-irons.
 
“Skillfully synthesizes the story of eBay’s corporate evolution with profiles of more peripheral figures.” —The Washington Post Book World
 
“The definitive history of eBay—a strange and exhilarating tale.” —Jeffrey Toobin, New York Times-bestselling author of True Crimes and Misdemeanors