An online auction (also electronic auction, e-auction, virtual auction, or eAuction) is an auction held over the internet and accessed by internet connected devices. Similar to in-person auctions, online auctions come in a variety of types, with different bidding and selling rules. The e-commerce and online auction industry, measured by revenue, is $995.8 billion in 2023. eCommerce sales for businesses have been steadily increasing for years, and with the migration of virtually all transactions to digital due to the COVID Pandemic, worldwide sales through ecommerce sales channels such as websites and online marketplaces increased overall in 2020. There are two primary markets for online auctions: business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C). B2C is forecast to have over a 1% annual growth rate, achieving a nearly 22% share of total global retail sales by 2024. B2B ecommerce gross merchandise value showed a similarly steady rate through 2019, as to mirror its retail B2C counterpart. The largest consumer-to-consumer online auction site is eBay, which is growing in popularity because it is a convenient, efficient, and effective method for buying and selling goods. Despite the benefits of online auctions, the anonymity of the internet, the large market, and the ease of access makes online auction fraud easier than in traditional auctions. Online auctions fraud reports are consolidated into online shopping categories. History Online auctions originated on web forums as early as 1979 on CompuServe and The Source, as well as through email and bulletin board systems. Auctioneers and sellers would post notices describing items for sale, minimum bids, and closing times. As the popularity of online auctions grew, websites dedicated to the practice began to appear in 1995 when two auction sites were founded. The first online auction site was Onsale.com, founded by Jerry Kaplan in May 1995. Onsale's business model had the company act as the seller. In September of 1995, eBay was founded by French-Iranian computer scientist Pierre Omidyar using a different approach to online auctions by facilitating person-to-person transactions which was a popular choice with consumers, leading eBay to become the largest e-commerce site in the early 2000s. Benefits of Online Auctions A core benefit of an online auction is the removal of the physical limitations of a traditional auction that requires attendees to be geographically located together which greatly reduces audience reach. Online auctions offer advantages to users that traditional auction formats do not offer such