THE first item to be ever sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer that belonged to the site's founder, Pierre Omidyar, for $14.83, in 1995.

Assuming that the successful bidder was under the impression that the object worked, Omidyar contacted to tell him the laser pointer was broken.

The response was "I collect broken laser pointers." This realisation of the maxim that one man's junk is another man's treasure made Omidyar a billionaire and changed the way we shopped on line irrevocably.

Twelve years on and the online auction site, which has 200 million users worldwide, is still the most wonderful source of fantastically diverse goods, as well as the more conventional ones. Since its launch in this country in June 2005, Irish eBayers have been a busy little bunch. Currently, an item is bought by an Irish person every 20 seconds, with clothes being bought every two minutes, a DVD every four minutes and an auto part every five minutes. Sellers range from those who use it as supplementary income, to those who've made it their livelihood, and in terms of buying, it's extremely unusual not to know someone who hasn't purchased on eBay, never mind those who confess to outright addiction.

We spoke to five people who can't beat the adrenaline rush of eBayphoria.

JULIE KENDALL
The B&B landlady/seller

"You have to accept the bid that's on. You can't turn around and say, 'But I wanted more'" We all like a good deal, but not everyone can go that step further and turn bargain spotting into a money-making venture. Julie Kendall, however, always has her eye out for anything that she can pick up and sell on eBay and make a bit of money on, including waterproof mattress covers for children's beds, oven gloves with a shamrock design and aquarium plants.

The former medical secretary from Worcester moved to Cork two and a half years ago and is the proprietor of the Mountain View B&B in Newmarket. She says her eBay sideline isn't particularly time-consuming, taking approximately one hour out of her week. Auctioning short breaks at the B&B has proved to be very popular. "I find a lot of Americans and Canadians and Dutch and Germans bidding, " she says. "They tend to plan their trips well in advance. I've got an Australian couple looking at 2008!"

She's also registered as an eBay trading assistant, which means she can sell on other people's behalf. It's not very big in Cork yet, she says, but believes it's a good way forward.

"I've had a guy from Kerry message me and he's moving house and he has lots of things to sell like wedding gifts, books and bits and pieces so that looks promising."

Constantly on the look-out for potential eBay sales, charity and Euro shops are some of Kendall's preferred haunts. "Sometimes you find another little niche. I found microwave omelette makers in Heatons for 4 so I'm going to put one of those on for 6 and see if it will sell. I'd never seen one before and we tried it out and it was brilliant."

One of her more unusual sales was weed from her garden's pond for which a gentleman paid 20. "He came to collect it . . . obviously. I wasn't going to post a black bin bag of pond weed. Four little tiny strands of it in a shop is about 4 so for 20 he got a thousand times more than you would get in an aquarium shop, so he was well pleased."

Generally Kendall's items tend to be small value, but she says it all adds up. But it's not always possible to predict what will prove popular and what won't and she has ended up selling some items for less than she bought them for, which might only be a matter of euros but when your profit margins aren't huge to begin with, it's not ideal. Plus, you've got to accept the winning bid, even if it's not what you had hoped for. "You can't turn around and say 'But I wanted more'. If somebody buys my holidays for 20 instead of 80, that's it, " Another potential pitfall is weight. Guessing and tipping over into another weight category can lose you money and maybe all of your profit. Above all else, Kendall advises to completely honest and accurate with descriptions. "If something has got a tiny fault in it or a stain, you've got to put that in, because otherwise you'll end up having to refund people as they won't be happy. You've got to be as genuine as you can at the end of the day."

Has she ever thought about selling some of the fresh eggs from the chicken and ducks that supply breakfast for the B&B. "No, because they're not pure breeds, but you could sell the eggs on, provided you didn't send them abroad, " she explains. Truly, there are no limits to eBay.

QUENTIN FOTTRELL
The '70s TV programme aficionado

"It's fun to experience what I was too young to appreciate it when I was growing up" When your taste in television tends towards classic '70s sitcoms, indulging it isn't as simple as popping into HMV. However, on eBay, Fottrell can pick up series of programmes like Mary Tyler Moore and the spin-offs, Phyllis and Rhoda, and often quite cheaply. So what's the appeal of these shows for him?

The '70s, he believes, was a great period for sitcoms, and Mary Tyler Moore, the critically acclaimed show about a career-driven female TV producer, especially so. "It was a ground-breaking show because it was the first time a woman of a certain age . . . she was 30 . . . was shown in a primetime show to be single and for it to be okay that she was single in her 30s. Also, more importantly, she was one of the first characters, if not the first, to have sex outside of marriage."

There's a realism to the show which appeals to Fottrell as well. Unlike Friends, for example, where the characters implausibly lived in a $2m apartment in Greenwich Village, Mary started out in a studio apartment with a pull-out bed, which was all she could afford, and the series was set in Minneapolis because they wanted to show all the seasons, like winter and spring, through the window of her apartment building. Mary Tyler Moore is notable for both its longevity and because the only half-hour sitcom had an hour-long drama as a spin off, which is very unusual: Edward Asner, who played Moore's boss took on the mantle of newspaper editor in Lou Grant.

"The reason they could do that is because the characters were so truthfully written and I think that this is what is lacking from a lot of television today and it's why I get so much pleasure from it. There's also the sense of rediscovery. It's fun to experience what I was too young to appreciate when I was growing up, " Fottrell says.

He recently introduced his friends to the show with a Mary Tyler Moore supper showcase. "I did chicken Maryland and baked Alaska . . . food from the '70s . . . and Cinzano.

People had to dress up . . . not crazy '70s, just a nod to the era. I thought they'd watch one or two episodes and get bored but everybody enjoyed it so much, it was great."

LIAM BODENHAM
The store owner

"If you're looking to buy Louis Vuitton, eBay is a great place to do it" By his own admission, Bodenham knows a scary amount about handbags and designer clothing. "With a Louis Vuitton, it might be a difference in the leather; it might be too red, " he observes. "We've had some very, very good fakes in. We had one lady come into us with a handbag and I think it was her husband who bought it for her and we had to tell her it was a fake. She was upset but I'm not going to lie. He might have bought it as a real onef" Liam and his cousin Catherine Hegarty started up their full-time eBay drop-off shop in November 2005. Called I-Soldit, they offer a service whereby they will sell items on an individual's behalf, saving their clients time and effort. It's proven to be most successful. "Buying is incredibly easy but when you're selling you have to take the time to take the photographs, write a listing, you're going to get about 50-60 questions if it's something that people are very interested in and you answer all the questions, " Liam explains. "Then you've got to pack it, ship it, go down to the post office or arrange for the courier to come and collect. If you have a job or kids, you probably don't have the time to do it."

So what are people coming in with? Everything and anything, he says. They will only take goods that will sell for more than 160, or four or five items that are collectibles, even if they're worth a little less. "What we really want to do is cover our own costs and then give you a cheque that you will be happy with as well. We can take lots of stuff in that might sell for a tenner. Then we get 3, eBay gets 3 and you get 3, which isn't particularly good and the VAT takes about 50c.

We much prefer to take higher value items that we can get a good price for." Collectibles such as Waterford Crystal sell very well, as do once-offs like rare signed U2 vinyls and electronic goods such as iPods, televisions and sound systems.

Clothes, which they sell in limited amounts, must be extremely high end; Bodenham mentions designers like Yoji Yamamoto and Dries Van Noten. Prada, he says, is a little bit common. Nor should you be looking on a big return on a Louis Vuitton handbag. "If you paid 1,000 for your LV, you'll probably get 280 on eBay for it and that's the reality. But if you're looking to buy LV, eBay is a great place to do it, " he says.

From someone who had never shopped on eBay, Liam now spends approximately eight hours a day on the site. And as he points out, there's no accounting for taste. "When we see an item that's very unusual or strange, we always see it as a bit of challenge, " he says.

"We sold a coffin. It wasn't used but it was second hand and people were using it as a coffee table. I sold it to a Goth lady and she's using it as a cabinet for her high heels."

For wannabe sellers, his advice for writing a winning description is as follows: "Keep it concise and keep it fact based. People don't want to read about your life story. A television is a television. People just want to know the specs and if it works."

KATIE BYRNE
The vintage clothes enthusiast

"I'm too scared to get another account. I still look all the time and if I really want something I'll get it but no one will give me their account details any more" To be kicked off one eBay account is unfortunate. To be kicked off two looks like sheer carelessness but according to Katie Byrne, it can happen quite easily. "I bought so much stuff on my own account . . . I think I bought about 40 things in one go . . . and it was going to take me about three hours to pay for everything, just the administration part of it, to actually go to every payer and pay them, " she says. "It was quick to press 'pay' but to put all my details in and stuff. I never got around to filling it all in and I got booted up." Her brother kindly gave her his details but she managed to get herself struck off this as well.

She still browses these days, and if she really wants something, she'll get it via someone else, but she hasn't signed up for another account. Byrne, deputy editor with Irish Tatler, used/uses eBay to source vintage hats and vintage clothes in general. The hats, which she displays on her shelves, are generally from the 1940s. "I just think they're beautiful, " she says. "They're collectors' pieces but I also wear them." The most she's spent on any of the hats is only about 20, and as you can also buy them in lots of about six, she thinks there's good value in them.

In terms of clothes, she seeks out '80s items, the tackier the better. "I like really hideous stuff with desperate winged collars, padded shoulders, faux leather and New Wave stuff, " she says. "I was into boots when I first started off, those kind of slouchy New Romantic boots, but then everyone started buying them. You used to be able to get them for a tenner but now it's about 60 or 70 quid a pair. That's one thing you see as well, when something comes into fashion the price of a lot of vintage stuff comes up immediately."

Favourite purchases include an original Smiths concert tee-shirt from the '80s which is in great condition, a grey tails jacket and a black whimsy (a hat/head piece) that's like a little bow tie and which, she says, could be worn to the races or just on a night out. There have been occasional disasters along the way as well too. "I bought a mumu, which looked like a lovely vintage dress, but it had been pinned back on the model and it was actually about size 22."

Does she experience that eBay comedown that buyers regularly experience after the elation of winning the bid and then having to wait up to another two weeks before getting the goods? Definitely, she says, and you can often forget what you actually bought.

But there are also recompenses. "Some sellers, and I had a few, actually wrapped the stuff up for you in ribbons and everything and write you little notes so it was almost like getting a gift." However, selling is not something she'd be ever interested in pursuing. "It's just all about the quick fix for me, just pressing 'buy', but the idea of actually taking a picture or liaising with buyers would not be my thing at all."

MARTIN FAHY
The Irish interest vendor

"Make yourself stand out; you are wasting your time if you think you can just copy other sellers" As a stamp collector, Martin Fahy had found eBay to be a wonderful way of filling holes in his collection. He began to sell the odd item here and there and eventually left his job in May 2005 to embark upon full-time selling.

Starting with collectibles such as stamps and coins, which he buys in public auctions, he subsequently created a shop on eBay (www. emerald-isle-gifts. com) which sells gifts and crafts, all with an Irish and Celtic theme.

Starting up as a full-time seller is not easy.

"It's a big commitment and it takes a lot of hard work, " he says. "I'm working 60-70 hours a week, minimum. By the summer, I hope to be down to a normal working week.

Like any new business you have to put in long hours in the beginning." Part of the reason for his current long working hours is that he is producing a range of vintage pictures from Ireland, from 100 years ago, which will be launched in March, and he's also starting his own e-commerce store to complement the eBay business.

Originality is key, he thinks, in doing well on eBay. "Make yourself stand out; you are wasting your time if you think you can just copy other sellers and will be successful, " he advises. Fahy has now sold his wares to over 40 countries on five continents and hopes to move into clothes and jewellery next, two perennial eBay favourites.

The most unusual item he's selling at the moment is a poster advertising the Nirvana concert scheduled to take place in Dublin on the day that Kurt Cobain died. He believes it's worth in the region of 400 to 500.