The annual online auction with a first prize of lunching with the investment billionaire has seen bids top the $200,000 mark.

The auction, to dine out on steak with celebrity high-roller Warren Buffett, will see the winning bid joined at the dining table by up to seven additional guests at the New York steakhouse run by Smith & Wollensky.

Proceeds from the benefit lunch will go towards the Glide Foundation, a San Francisco non-profit organisation that operates in the Tenderloin district, offering meals, child care, health care and vocational training for the city’s homeless and poor.

The charity lunch was first begun in 2000 after Buffett’s late wife Susan, who passed away in 2004, introduced the billionaire to Glide and founder Reverend Cecil Williams. The past 10 lunches have generated over $5.9 million for the charity.

This year’s auction is being run by EBay Inc’s website, and has so far seen 31 separate bids for the Buffett luncheon, although usual process means that the last couple of hours of bidding will see the most frenzied action. Last year’s winning bid was $1,680,300 from Toronto-based Salida Capital Corp, while the all-time record bid was made in 2008 by the Hong Kong investor Zhao Danyang, worth $2,110,100.

Buffett, 79, is reportedly worth around $47 billion according to figures published by Forbes magazine. His investment and insurance company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc, has been the main source of his wealth, much of which has already been pledged to charity.

eBay has been selling clothes for quite some time, but these have always been clothes that other people are actually selling. This is changing with the launch of their fashion website today – fashion.ebay.com. This new microsite will bring together a number of ways to sell by working with major fashion retailers and brands like Ann Taylor, Hugo Boss, Abercrombie & Fitch and more to act as sellers.

The web company started testing short-term sales of small amounts of merchandise in late 2009. Then early last week they launched Fashion Vault, which put them directly in competition with other trendy clothing and accessory discount websites like Relala.com and Gilt.com. They are also working to create an online outlet mall with enlisted brands like Brooks Brothers, Aldo (a shoe brand) and Lord & Taylor. eBay also hopes to add more exclusive fashion after successfully dealing with Norma Kamali and Narciso Rodriguez.

eBay Marketplaces president Lorrie Norrington said that they are really transforming the experience, playing with their strengths in clothing. eBay Marketplaces also includes e-commerce sites like Kijiji and Shopping.com, while it also accounted for 61% of the £8.7 billion revenue of the company last year.

The new fashion.ebay.com will now put eBay in more direct competition with Amazon.com and traditional retail chains. Many believe that this is a great idea – particular consumers that already use eBay to shop for most of what they need – however, some experts are skeptical, saying that it will only be successful if they have access to merchandise that is priced well like the used goods they are so well known for selling.