"Best" depends on interpretation. Is Ebay the largest auction site? Yes.

Is Ebay the most seller friendly site? No.

Does Ebay offer the best prices on listing? No.

Will the average seller get more sales on Ebay with the same amount of listings? The answer is likely to be yes.

Is the profit higher for those sellers if using Ebay? That remains to be seen. If the number of auctions with no bids keeps increasing on Ebay, the expense of operating on that site becomes excessive. It would then be more profitable to have fewer successful auctions on a smaller site without the high fees.

For example, placing a basic auction with a $9.99 starting bid with three photos and a BIN option costs about 75 cents on Ebay. Yahoo and others cost 5 cents. Ten unsuccessful auctions on ebay cost the seller $7.50, whereas the other sites cost the seller 50 cents. Those numbers add up quickly and may overshadow any increase in activity associated with the higher fees.

Even on successful auctions, we pay a final valuation fee of 5.25% on Ebay(first $25).....while only 2.25% on other sites.

If profit margins are tight, higher fees take their toll on the interpretation of "best".

Is Ebay the most expensive auction site in relation to expense? Yes.

Is Ebay the best auction site for sellers seeking a profit? That remains to be seen.

I believe that buyers would find some excellent deals on Yahoo. The listing expenses are less, so the price for items can be set at a lower amount. Presently, the "volume" is still with Ebay(no doubt about that). However "productive volume" is the key.

Eventually the expense of listing items ending with "no bids" will force sellers to set higher minimum prices on Ebay(which would probably increase the amount of unsuccessful auctions). That spiral could be just one more straw on the Ebay camel's back.

<<Like many, my bitch with ebay is the fees. It costs almost 10% if they pay with PayPal and ebay does almost nothing>>

Very true. I was a loyal Ebay seller and would not have even considered moving my business to another site. I knew Yahoo and others existed, but never tried them....until this latest Ebay fee hike.

After calculating the many little fees that Ebay slams sellers with, it made sense to try another site. Ebay created the inspiration to check out the other sites....at a time when their stock price is dropping. What a stupid move on their part. I predict that their next financial statement will be a disaster that will cause the stock to slide much further south.

So far, Yahoo seems to provide a fair amount of traffic and has produced a handfull of sales so far. Just today, an item sold on Yahoo for $4 more than a similar item sold on Ebay a month ago. Combine that with much lower listing and final valuation fees and the profit was clearly better on Yahoo. If overall volume increases on Yahoo, they will easily be my site of choice. A basic item starting at $9.75 costs a nickel to list on Yahoo...with three full size pics, a ten day listing, and a BIN option. Ebay would cost almost a dollar for the same ad on a seven day listing. Run twenty+ listings and the difference really becomes clear.

Considering Ebay's stats show that over 50% of auctions do not even get a bid sort of shows there is a big expense burden on the seller. The apparent lack of buyer volume on Ebay certainly does not justify their fee increase. I'll pay a premium when it's justified, but the numbers don't seem to call for a high premium in this case.

Ebay may be killing itself with their latest fee hikes. Cold reality may end up telling them that they are just not worth it. Yahoo and others will likely reap the benefit of what seems to be Ebay's assumption that its sellers are merely cattle that have been branded.

Well, there's a whole lot of broken fencing and the herd is starting to graze elsewhere.

The basic picture quality on Yahoo seems to be better than on Ebay. Also the fact that you receive 3 free pics instead of the 1 allowed on Ebay is a definite plus for Yahoo.

The volume still needs to increase on Yahoo...but then the volume on Ebay has certainly dropped recently for most sellers on that site. At this point, I generally only place Ebay listings when they have their "nickel listing specials"(which seem to be coming at a regular pace since their ill-fated fee hike decision last month). Dropping volume seems to be hurting the company, otherwise why the numerous "specials" after instituting a rate hike?

If my listing habits are shared by others, Ebay has lost quite a few of their "added listing feature" users. For instance, the Buy It Now option now carries a multilevel fee depending on the BIN price. Well, I don't use that option anywhere near as much(which used to be on practically evey listing I placed.

Due to those considerations, I noticed that my last Ebay invoice has actually unintentionally dropped over 50% due to minimized use. I think their next quarter stock financial statements will be a shock to Wall Street. All those nickels and dimes add up when applied to millions upon millions of affected users.

At this point, I'll keep using multiple auction sites. I still find it hard to believe that Ebay purposely set the stage to inspire its loyal sellers to try other auction sites! Two months ago (before the hikes), I would not have even considered another auction account at a different site...the furthest thing from my mind.

Well, after a few sales on Yahoo with minimal listing expense, that seems to have changed. Now, I will be comparing "apples to apples".

<<Buyer's and sellers keep coming.>>

The charts may show sales(for now)....but those sales are pathetically low and sellers are leaving the site in large numbers. Even brokerage houses are beginning to notice this trend for Ebay. I was a fairly active seller on Ebay, but have cut back quite a bit due to the very low number of bids and sales. Sales were very good for the first four years...but have been steadily dropping for the past few months.

Bargains are surely available due to the fact that most auctions now go without a single bid. However, sellers will not continue to participate in such a low profit environment.

I may be wrong, but when the next Ebay financial statements are provided there could likely be a dramatic drop in the already depressed stock price. Even small sellers have cut back, which cumulatively will affect Ebay's ledger sheets. For the past few years, I averaged about $75-100 a month in fees. Last month, I cut back to where Ebay's invoice showed only $13.50. Two other friends have the same type change.

Listings place on Yahoo have produced sales(lower volume)...however with far lower fees. With Ebay fees often being 20 times the cost of Yahoo, you can run a listing for MONTHS for less than it costs to be on Ebay for a week. With over 50% of Ebay listings ending in zero bids, it becomes clear that the playing field is changing.

<<They thought they were the big boys on the block, raised their prices only to notice margins actually drop due to lost customers. Who knows, eBay may do the same thing.>>

Unfortunately for Ebay, they have done the job of cultivating other auction sites' activity. Yahoo, Overstock, and others could not have asked for a better New Year's gift!

Many of Ebay's once loyal sellers(myself included) have been pushed to look into other auction site operations. Presently, I would never go back to strictly using one auction site(Ebay has permanently lost my 100% participation status no matter what they do in the future)... whereas five months ago, I would not have even entertained the thought of listing anywhere but Ebay. Ebay has severed the "loyalty factor" with many of it's sellers.

The other thing I am finding out is that there seems to be a low percentage of rule enforcement that is intended to maintain quality buyers and sellers. Currently, a seller can actually take a picture of a magazine ad, claim to have the item, fail to deliver, list another identical ficticious listing....and the only thing Ebay will do is pass on a weak e-mail "reprimand". Further, their "buyer protection" would leave the defrauded buyer "holding the bag" if the purchase were less than $25(the buyer loses all shipping expenses since Ebay does not concern itself with such losses incurred by a buyer).

IMO, the feedback system is all but worthless as well. Feedback does NOT include any info about a buyer having "nonpaying bidder" items on record. It does NOT include information about sellers who have had multiple buyers go through the process of trying to regain partial refunds on items that were never delivered. Instead, it contains a fragile balance of mostly positive entries due to the fear of retaliatory negative feedback along with many sellers who "pad" their feedback with phoney entries(just look at a few of the identical "recipe" auctions where penny recipes are "purchases by the same people...who then leave praises for the seller).

Such a system is bound to lose credibility instead of gain respect. The system needs to be fixed and it does not appear that anyone in charge is interested in tackling the job.

Hi

Yes, eBay is getting huge.  So much so that it can be hard to find what you're looking for.

A few other auction sites have started up, but they don't seem to have caught on well enough yet.