QXL is one of
Europe's largest
online auction sites, with a
presence in 12 European
countries and several hundred thousand auctions running at any single time. (Its
American competitor eBay dwarves it
immensely however, with its some 10 million
concurrent auctions.)
QXL started in Great Britain in 1997, under the name Quixell, and its first auction (claimed to be Europe's first online) was held in January 1998. Originally the company sold computers and other electronics to consumers via the auction format, but in December 1998 QXL (which the company was now called) changed into becoming Europe's fist person-to-person auction site.
The company also started expanding elsewhere in Europe, first into Germany and in 1999 QXL also started local auction sites in France, Italy and The Netherlands. Through acqusitions QXL expanded in 2000 into Poland, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden. The company also merged with the German auction site ricardo to form QXL ricardo PLC (which is the full name that no one uses), and finally expanded into Switzerland and Spain.
QXL is a publicly traded company with its shares listed on the Official List of the United Kingdom Listing Authority, the Nasdaq National Market and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
Source of information and URL to QXL's main (British) website:
http://www.qxl.com/