All I can say is wow, eBay sure has fallen far from being a company that once took care of buyers and sellers. It seems that now a days all they care about is profits. I do believe if another auction service comes along that has a better interface and the same ease of use as eBay, it will probably take over the market. Right now the two best auction places I have found and used, are eBid and Webidz, but they have no where near the amount of users and traffic that eBay has.

But the really sad part is that most of the other auction services are still having to use a part of eBay, which is Paypal, to purchase the items. Yes, they may offer Google Checkout, but the amount of buyers who prefer to use Paypal is staggering. In my opinion, all Google needs to do is add the ability to Checkout without having an account with Google. Now I know a Google account is free to sign up for, but it’s still added steps for people to checkout, and the more steps you add the higher the chance the customer will not purchase. If Google changed this to where all someone has to do is enter a credit card to purchase, I am sure thousands of sellers would switch over to them in a heart beat, and this would give E-commerce and auction sites a chance to remove the grip Paypal currently has. But I do believe it will take some time for the switch to be effective with buyers, since so many have built up Paypal to be a company and a word of trust and protection. Even though this is far from the truth if you have had any disputes with them. If you want to read one of the longest list of Paypal problems and disputes Follow this link.

I have used eBay hundred of times over the years, and for items I have sold I have always been unhappy with the price they charge for selling on their website. It’s not as if they do anything special to promote your listing, even the pictures that you upload to them suck, because the image sizes are so small. Most sellers resort to using pictures from an outside website and linking it to their listings. As far as promoting your auction, all that happens is your listing is just put in a long list of auctions and lets face it, most people don’t go through this list, they just look for what auctions are ending soon. So the question is, why do they feel they need to charge so money for doing so little? I guess until eBay starts losing massive amounts of customers, through the auction site, and through Paypal, will they start to change their attitude towards treating customers better. But by then it will most likely be to late for them to reclaim what they once had.

If you want to read the full article just click here