eBay Flexes CE Muscle To Fill Townhouse On A Budget
By Alan Wolf -- TWICE, 6/21/2004
NEW YORK— For the second year in a row, eBay graphically demonstrated the range, quality and affordability of its home product offering by filling a Manhattan townhouse with goods purchased from the online auction site.
The company enlisted the aid of eight New York designers to decorate one room each of a four-story, $6.5 million Upper East Side building using eBay and a shoestring budget. The result, open to the public earlier this month, was a stylish and eclectic collection of home furnishings and electronics — 460 items in all — that were purchased for less than $110,000.
CE products ranged from sharply priced plasma and LCD display TVs to computers and cordless phones, underscoring eBay's $5.1 billion in annual sales of computers and home electronics.
The products were later re-sold in an eBay charity auction that benefited The Alpha Workshops, a non-profit group which trains people with HIV/AIDS in artisan skills.
