A fascinating eBay case study is the number one seller on eBay, a little outfit called Marie's CDs, but is better known under its old name "1 Cent CD." Jay and Marie, current ID "jayandmarie", are an institution on eBay and are a big part of what makes eBay such an amazingly popular phenomenon.

This little company is literally an eBay dream come true. They started small out of their home in California in 1999 and began growing quickly. To date they have completed over 1 million auctions on eBay and have a feedback rating of 177,018 with 99% satisfaction from their customers!

When I say grow, I mean it in a Jack and the Beanstalk kind of way. Their business started out as a little fly-by-night outfit and has now sold over 1 million dollars (yep, that's $1,000,000) annually for the past three years... Let me repeat that: over a million dollars in sales each year for three years running! Now THAT is growth!

They employ several people, have three small buildings in southern California, and ship items all over the world (mainly CDs). They got their fame from their auctions for CDs that start at only a penny...

What can we learn from this fascinating case study? What do Jay and Marie actually do?

Well, for one thing, they have huge numbers of auctions. Today, they have 83 pages of auctions listed. eBay lists 50 auctions to a page, so that is over 4,000 auctions.

Secondly, they offer great value, because their CDs begin at one cent. Yes, all of them.

None of their auctions has a reserve. Does it pay off? You betchum! Today, looking through 4 pages of eBay auctions, only 3 of them had no bids - so far.

And, naturally, their great feedback and reputation work heavily in their favor. After all, how many eBay sellers have 177,000+ feedback points with over half a million transactions completed.

This case study shows all of us how smart marketing and a great business model can pay off on eBay - and ecommerce, in general.