From “Toys & Beanies”
to “trending kicks”

The oldest homepage we found on www.ebay.com is from June 14, 1997. It has a heading, Welcome to eBay!, a link that says AuctionWeb and two sentences: The most fun buying and selling on the Web! Take part in an exciting auction, or put your own merchandise on auction, all free for buyers! No pictures render in this capture, so the still is text on grey.

The small print says Copyright © 1995-1996 eBay Inc. Pierre Omidyar had started the auction service as AuctionWeb in September 1995.^[1] One of the things he put up for auction was a broken laser pointer. A buyer named Mark Fraser paid $14.83 for it. Omidyar later recalled users sending their payments as coins taped to index cards.^[2]

You may have heard a different origin story, that Omidyar built the site for his wife’s PEZ collection. eBay’s own history page calls that story fabricated.^[1]

Three months after this capture, in September 1997, AuctionWeb was renamed eBay.^[1] The page’s code keeps a trace of a different look: a commented-out line that would have made the page black, with white text and yellow links.

The May 5, 1999 page is the first full eBay homepage in our set, and it reads like a scoreboard. The logo has four overlapping letters in red, blue, yellow and green. Under it a yellow tab says categories and lists twelve, each with a count. Beside them sit the stats box and a blue one, get local!, which points to eBay LA, our first regional eBay.

The six listings under featured include two that already sell the year 2000: Gold Eagles! 20 Gem Bu 1/10th Oz. Coins - Y2k and Sally Winey Desiged Bears, Ltd. Sgn HOT Y2K, typo included.

In January 1999 the homepage, then at pages.ebay.com, had gone further. One of its featured listings was Drive Your Own Water Well - Y2K, Irrigation.

Near the bottom it says Last updated: 05/05/99, 09:15:00 PDT. Three earlier stamps from the same morning stay hidden in the code as comments: 06:18:22, 08:13:08 and 09:10:02. Under the line, two browser badges have the alt text Get Netscape and Try AOL.

At times in late 1998, about 7% of eBay’s listings involved Beanie Babies, according to the company’s annual report. The same report lists what it cost to stand out: $2 to set an auction heading in bold, $1 for a seasonal icon such as a St Patrick’s Day shamrock.^[3]

Five weeks after this capture, on June 10, 1999, the site went down.^[1] eBay’s 2000 annual report later disclosed interruptions lasting up to 22 hours.^[5]

By June 15, 2000 the logo has a line beside it, the world's online marketplace, and a yellow search bar asks what are you looking for? The stats box is gone. In its place: Over 4 million items for sale!, more than twice the count of thirteen months earlier.

The page now tries to send you somewhere. Specialty Sites lists Automotive, Business Exchange and Great Collections. A box called Local Trading has a menu that says Pick a region; its code lists 57 entries, from AZ--Phoenix to WI--Milwaukee, linking to 53 distinct destinations. Under it, another closed menu, Browse by Themes, has 41 themes, among them Barbie, Elvis, Model Trains and TV Cops.

The featured list still belongs to the sellers: New "elvis" Casino Slot Machine by Igt! Rare!, a Velo 1 Handheld Computer, 401+ Programs For Your Preschooler! A red Hot Picks bar at the top offers two links, Weddings - Things to make the day perfect! and Father's Day - Gift Ideas for Men. It is the first of many Father’s Days on these June captures.

In November that year eBay added Buy It Now, a fixed price you could pay without waiting for the auction to end.^[5]

In June 2001 the slogan moves under the logo, The World's Online Marketplace™, and the TM beside the logo becomes ®. The browser tab, eBay - Your Personal Trading Community in June 2000, now reads eBay - the world's online marketplace.

The middle of the page is a car: bid on Tiger's Buick, with a photo of the car and the alt text Tiger Woods Foundation. Next to it, Hot hitters lists Albert Pujols, Larry Walker, Jason Giambi, Ichiro Suzuki and Juan Gonzalez.

The small print is busy too. A coupon reads FREE $5 for First-Time Buyers, and the footer links include eBay Anywhere - Wireless. The code has two labels for things you can’t see: an empty slot marked outage notice, two years after the long outage of 1999, and an ad fragment for AOL, a placement for serving new user one-time popup.

The October 2002 page keeps the layout and grows the lists. Sothebys.com joins the specialty sites, the category column runs from Airline Tickets to Everything Else with Charity - Bid for a Cure in between, and a blue box below the featured list is headed SPORTING THE LOOK.

The June 21, 2003 page adds two lists of its own. A purple box, Best of eBay Motors, ranks cars from 1 to 10, starting with Ford Mustang and Chevy Corvette. An orange one is TOP 15 DEALS OF THE WEEK.

The specialty sites now open with eBay Live! Event: don't miss! June 26 - 28, 2003, Orlando, FL, and PayPal is on the list.

Look at the featured items, though. After Shelter Cove, Northern California Coastal Lot, Entire Ophthalmology Practice Equip. 2 Lanes+ and an IBM ThinkPad come three diet-pill listings. They weren’t new. Each of our five captures from 2001 to 2005 has at least one weight-loss listing among its featured items.

The June 2004 page is a redesign. A blue banner says Welcome to eBay, with a line under it: Buying new items, brand names, and collectibles on eBay is simple. Here's how it works... Step one is a yellow box, 1 Find.

Below it an orange one warns You must register to bid or buy. It's fast, easy, and free! and lists the benefits, ending with PayPal Buyer Protection.

The slogan has left the logo, which stands alone with its ®. An HTML comment reads sp032304 - Removed by Listfiles for Ads Redesign. And the browser tab now lists product categories, a title our captures keep until 2010:

Each title repeats in our captures until the next one in the list. From 2012 the word eBay moves from the front of the title to the end.

In June 2005 the header is slimmer and greets you with Hello! Sign in/out. The slogan is back as a yellow strip, The World's Online Marketplace, and the top right reads Powered By IBM. The footer is a row of sponsor logos.

In June 2006 the left side of the page is one long yellow column: specialty sites, a category list and links to more eBay sites. The heading now says you can get it on eBay, and the sponsor in the corner has changed to Java Technology, Powered by Sun.

A blue banner in the middle is a Skype ad, Totally Free Calls to Any Phone in the U.S. Skype is also in a new box, More eBay Sites, with Half.com, PayPal, ProStores, Apartments on Rent.com and Shopping.com.

June 2007 finishes the sentence: Whatever it is... you can get it on eBay. A red badge invites you to eBay Live! again, Boston • June 14-16.

StumbleUpon has joined the other eBay sites, and the featured list has turned into small ads: Advertise 1/3 page in Forbes Magazi... and Wyoming land 40 acres, $11,500 TERM...

The June 2008 page drops the yellow column. Tabs sit under the search box (Categories, Motors, Express, Stores), and a white panel says Welcome with red Sign In and Register buttons.

The middle is mostly photographs: Don't just shop. Win! over Nike Shoes, Xbox 360, iPhone, Bose Headphones, Garmin GPS and Dell Laptops, then a BMW with the word SMOKIN'. Below it, two panels of products say ENDING NOW!

A month later, on July 10, 2008, eBay’s iPhone app was on the App Store from its first day. An outside team had built it in five weeks.^[6]

June 2009 adds a tab marked NEW, Daily Deal, and a word cloud, What's In Demand: guitar hero world tour, Nikon D90, Call of Duty: World at War, Stephenie Meyer, ugg.

In June 2010 a box on the left says My Recent Activities. Under Viewed Items are two thumbnails, the first labeled "Tim Burton's" Alice i.... Both prices carry a small Buy It Now logo.

The June 2011 page sells Father’s Day from the top. A red banner reads For every SUPERDAD there's a SUPER GIFT, over a grill, a set of wrenches and a Panasonic 3D TV. A #1 DAD rosette sits next to the logo. Under the banner, three boxes, Welcome to eBay, Shop safely on eBay and Sign in, explain the site.

On the right, Trends on eBay, marked Updated daily, lists duke nukem, oregon state beavers, casey anthony, 69 grand prix, game of thrones.

The June 2012 page has a medal to the left of the logo, BEST DAD EVER, with SHOP FATHER'S DAY GIFTS underneath. The banner is about trust: eBay Buyer Protection COVERS YOUR PURCHASE PRICE + ORIGINAL SHIPPING. Our June 2011 and June 2012 captures both show car GPS units under Popular on eBay, with a Garmin nuvi 255W first.

A blog box in the corner is called eBay stories. Its headline that day: Presidents that Marx never made.

The June 2013 page has a new logo. The four colors are the same, but the letters are thin, lower case and sit side by side instead of piled on each other. eBay announced the change on September 13, 2012^[7] and dated the new logo’s introduction to October 10.^[8] Everything around it is flatter as well: grey type, a white search bar with a blue Search button, and a plain category list on the left.

Father’s Day is a kite this time, Happy Dad's Day. The banner sells THIN AND LIGHT TECH FAVORITES, and a pink ad on the right is for a T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S4. A blue tab on the far right says Tell us what you think.

The same quarterly update that dated the logo also carried the number from the top of this story: in the third quarter of 2012, 66% of eBay’s merchandise volume came from fixed-price sales.^[8] In February 2013 eBay rolled out a personalized homepage, Feed, to US users.^[9] Our signed-out June 2013 capture shows the generic welcome box of 2011 instead.

Our June 2014 capture has two tabs under the search box, My Feed and Collections, and the page reads like a magazine. The big box is a collection called Get Ready to Rock, subtitled Jump back with vintage concert Ts.

It opens like a short story: The civic center is packed. Full to the brim with chanting, happy, breathlessly excited teens. It is signed Created by elara-occ, and so are the boxes below it, Not Fade Away and True Colors.

The June 2015 page opens with a grey line across the very top: eBay and PayPal will be separate companies soon. The split was completed on July 17, 2015.^[4] The main banner speaks to sellers, LET VALETS DO THE SELLING FOR YOU. Under Today's Featured Collections, one called Get Bleached offers this Bleach LP signed by Kurt Cobain.

June 2016 speaks to sellers again: SELL TO GET WHAT YOU LOVE. The collections now sound like party plans, Rooftop Revelry and Sparkling Summer. In the bottom left corner of both pages a small box asks, How can we make this page better for you?

In the first quarter of 2017 eBay began rolling out a new personalized homepage.^[10] The signed-out June 2017 page shows its frame. A banner runs the full width of the window, Get Set for Summer, and under it a row of round pictures, Popular Destinations: Classic Toys, Skateboards, Supreme, Fine Art.

A light blue strip offers Get 0% APR with 24 Easy Payments through PayPal Credit, so PayPal is still on the page two years after the split.

June 2018 sells Tech Deals to Lift You Up (Including DJI drones under $650.) and gets a new tab, Under $10. A row called Trending on eBay ranks three things: World Cup 2018, a Travis Scott x Air Jordan 4 sneaker and Justify, on a button that says Triple Crown.

June 2019 is Rolling in $ummer Deals, then Crave-Worthy Brands. Indulge-Worthy Prices.: Rolex, Louis Vuitton, Patek Philippe and Chanel in yellow, orange and grey circles. The trending row still shows view counts. Captain Marvel has 4,709. Rainbow Pride has 295.

The June 2020 banner is Huge savings at The Brand Outlet, with Reebok, Milwaukee and Bose in its panels, and Brand Outlet is a link in the top bar. Lower down: Get your grill on.

June 2021 has a purple banner, Deals that'll blow you away, and under it a teal box: A message to our community about COVID-19. The next row promotes refurbished Arlo cameras, Tested and verified to be just like new. Further down, deals carry a blue Certified Refurbished mark.

By June 2022 the tabs end with eBay Refurbished. The banner offers Extra 15% off select summer essentials, with the terms in small type: Ends 6/19. Max $75 off orders $25+. 2x use. The box under it is blue: eBay stands with Ukraine, with a button, How to donate.

Two days after this capture, an eBay charity auction ended with the biggest bid in this story.

The June 2023 banner cuts off its own sentence: The Brand Outlet has everything yo... Two rows down, Score these trending kicks sits over sneakers in pale grey circles. The heading is on our 2024 and 2025 captures too. eBay had started checking selected sneakers for authenticity in October 2020.^[11]

A new tab says eBay Live, its live-stream shopping, which started as a beta in June 2022.^[12]

June 2024 turns the banner black, Save 15% on your next treasures, and the kicks are named under each shoe, starting with Kobe 4 Protro Girl Dad.

In June 2025 eBay Live is the first tab. The banner says Build an elite collection, with pictures labeled Lego, Coins and Comic books to its right. Below, a strip says Score coveted coins in real time and has a black button, Shop eBay Live.

By our June 2026 capture the search box has a camera icon and the top bar a Ship to link. The banner is orange, Best loved items at 12%* off. Its pictures are a graded Pikachu card, a steering wheel, a leather jacket and a handbag.

1999 · counts2026 · coupons

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In May 1999 the left column counted 76344 items under Coins & Stamps and 226283 under Toys & Beanies. The counts were gone by June 2000, and the overlapping letters by 2013.

The June 2026 capture has no category totals like those of May 1999. It sells percentages: 12% off, a coupon, a search box with a camera. A year earlier, though, the main banner had put Lego, Coins and Comic books at the top of the page, followed by a strip for live coin shopping.