Most expensive online auction: congratulations! You've bought a jet plane The highest ever eBay bid was 4.9 million dollars for a Gulfstream II jet. "What ever it is, you can get it on eBay". The slogan of eBay, the world's largest online auction website, may be closer to the truth than you would think. Alongside the cottage industry of small traders looking to make money from old records, designer shoes...
...or the contents of the cellar, there are some big fish and some very big ticket items. Like the case of a Gulfstream II jet aircraft, which was genuinely auctioned.
The jet was also sold — for an incredible 4.9 million dollars. This makes the passenger jet the holder of the record for the highest bid ever submitted on eBay. However, this bizarre online trade is about a decade old, and it took just as long for the jet to finally come under the virtual hammer: the auction ran for a duration of ten years, in which time a total of 97 bids were received. The auction was created by the company Tyler Jet, which has since become Tyler Jet Motorsports, and the plane was ultimately bought by an African charter company. If the eBay fees at the time had been as high as today — about 9 per cent of the winning bid — the online auction house would have made a considerable sum. But the days of auctions are also becoming a thing of the past on eBay — about 6 of every 10 transactions currently taking place on the platform are estimated to be of the "Buy it Now" variety. But "Buy it Now" is a difficult decision to make spontaneously in the case of a 5-million dollar jet plane. You would need ten years to think something like that over...
