eBay Serves Small Business

A French computer programmer, Pierre Omidyar, founded eBay in 1995 to help his wife and other collectors meet and make trades. (Omidyar’s wife collects PEZ dispensers.) But the online trading company, valued at $30 billion, has helped American business as well. More than 430,000 small businesses in the U.S. rely on eBay for a significant portion of their sales.