Ebay remains the primary website for most buyers looking for unique and hard-to-find collectibles.  The market domination they have surpasses most auction sites by 300% in numbers of listings, as well as number of unique visitors.  However, the recent fee increases to sellers is being addressed in several different ways by long-time Ebay sellers:

1.  New auction sites:  Ecrater is one of the leading contenders for both auctions and buy-it-now or best offers.  My store there is listed under tomsdisneydepot.

2.  Reduced # of Ebay listings:  altho the fees are reduced for listing items on Ebay, the increase of the final value fee was increased by nearly 36%.  Most sellers have reduced the numbers of items on ebay as a result.

3.  Reduced # of Ebay Stores:  many sellers, including me, have decided to close our Ebay storefronts and use the occasional Ebay auction to help drive traffic to our alternate selling sites.  I will still list items on auction, but my inventory will be complete and always available on ecrater.

Should Ebay rescind the price increases and feedback changes, it is possible that sellers will return and support Ebay:  but in light of the historical trends that Ebay has never really provided support or shown any level of concern for sellers, it is most likely that Ebay will resort to a Wal-Mart approach, selling higher dollar import bog-box types of items that most sellers do not have access to.  In the interim, I hope you will plan to visit Ecrater, and other alternative auction sites and show support for the sellers that you, the buyers, have supported in the past.

Thanks!

tom shilling