About eHarley Auction

The domain name “eHarleyAuction.com" was first bought by Steve Makarits in the year 2000. Back then online auction websites were all the craze. Auction sites like eBay and other startups auction website were taking off and becoming popular. Most of the popular online auction websites back then were mostly "List All" types of sites, meaning having categories that let you list anything and every kind of item you could think of.

That being the case, Steve figured the market was being saturated by those kinds of online auction sites, and as a late comer to the online auction premise, it would be hard for him to compete with those sites. 

So instead of competing with those other auction sites he decided to pick one segment, or niche if you will, and build a site to cater to that market.

The concept came to him after months of looking at all the online auctions and reading feedback about those sites left by their members and on review websites, It seemed to him that most of their users felt like just another number for the site owners to count or push their advertising on to. 

It was then decided he would try to concentrate his efforts on building a different kind of Auction Site, I guess you could call it a Social Auction Site (before the term Social Site became popular by today's standards.) A site that would offer features other than just a feedback page to rate a user. 

The plans were to let users add a profile photo of themselves to their auction profile. Back in 2001 that was a first for any auction site and Steve was the first to add that feature sometime between 2002 and 2003.
You can see an archive of that feature on one of the first attempts to build eHarleyAuction.com by visiting "Way Back Machine" at the link below.

https://web.archive.org/web/20030816204208/http://www.eharleyauction.com/helpfiles/sellerpic.htm

Other planned features to be added included a Live chat room for members, Discussion Forums to discuss their auction and upcoming rides, rallies, events and more along with "Tips and Tricks" and discussions about how to use eHarleyAuction.com to help new users navigate the site or any other topic related to the Harley Davidson lifestyle or whatever was on their minds at the time..

Steve tried the first few years to build the website by himself in his spare time from his bedroom/home office after getting off work every day.

Those days were rough because being a blue collar 9 to 5 type guy at the time and having to work to pay the bills meant that time and money to help fund the site and the idea a reality were limited.

So he started off using "Free Open Source auction" scripts to build the site. It was very frustrating for him because his PHP coding skills were zero at the time and his HTML skills were very limited enough you could not even call it a skill. It was all trial and error (mostly error LOL) on his part, simply because all the free open source scripts and some that he paid for the he tried to use were bare bones scripts full of bug and had very limited features and needed to many code upgrades, add-ons, code snippets, and some layout redefining to make the site presentable to the public.

He kept plugging away doing the best he could by himself while once in a while shelling out $20.00 here and $25.00 there to PHP coders who hung out like sharks in forums of those

free open source auction script sites waiting for people to ask for help with the some code. Half the code he paid for from those ("Code Sharks" as he calls them) did not even work or only worked half A**. So for that reason, plus being a perfectionist did not help much and it all just left him dissatisfied with the way the site functioned and looked. Inspite of all that some people did start to sign-up and post a few auction items on the site. Even so, it was not up to his standerds and he had to set the website on the back burner so to speak.

That being the case, Steve inadvertently let the domain name expire and accidentally lost possession of the domain name once in the last 23 years he has owned iti now. Not being a quitter and not wanting to give up on the eHarleyAuction.com idea/dream, He kept a close eye on the domain name and waited for the new owner to slip up and let the domain name expire from their possession. That's when he bought the domain name again and has not let it go ever since. Out of 23 years Steve has owned the domain name for at least 21 or 22 of those years.

Fast forward to 2020, Steve finally saved enough money to hire a professional coder and website designer to help build the website the way he had envisioned it working from day one which is now the site you see today with many more features and addons planed for the future.

Hi, my name

is Steve Makarits.
Focusing on one thing and doing it well was and is the goal I set for eHarleyAuction.com

I decided to build a Harley Davidson and Harley Davidson related products auction website because I could relate to the topic and I felt there would be enough Harley Davidson owners and products out there to support such a concept, not only support it with their "Dollars," but also because of their lifestyle, attitudes and for the most part, their track record as always being willing to lend a hand. Hence eHarleyAuction.com was born.

To see all the changes eHarleyAuction.com has been through from day one you can visit our link on "way back machine" below. They have 115 screen captures of this site. https://web.archive.org/web/20010225151108/http://www.eharleyauction.com/

If I have kept your attention to this point, then take the time to see all 115 snapshots of eHarleyAuction.com's timeline from wab.archive.org

Thanks for using eHarleyAuction.com.
Be sure to tell a friend because my moto is... the more who know, the more we grow, which inturn means more items on the the site to better serve you and users like you.