Quadrille - 2:28 am on Oct 13, 2008 (gmt 0)

As a buyer, ebay offers less and less that I can't get elsewhere - since I stopped using ebay as 'first choice', I've been amazed at how rarely I need to even look at ebay.

I won't buy anything breakable, valuable or electric - or from a less than perfect seller, as ebay have proved that I cannot trust them to support me, even against a seller who has visibly and brazenly lied in his listings.

As a seller, I've found that where I used to use my sales websites to promote my ebay listings, it's now much wiser and more profitable to use the occasional ebay sale purely as a promotion for my web site sales. Ebay fees make it impossible to sell low-value items at a profit at all, and on higher value items, fakes and rogue sellers undercut so often, that fees get wasted on no-sales.

Whine? Of course I'll whine. Anyone who has anything to do with ebay whines. We are part of the problem, but we cannot be part of the solution, because ebay neither listens to sellers nor cares about buyers. So they are neither trusted nor respected by either side.

I don't particularly want to see ebay die ... but until they improve, I'll rarely use them at all. They seem to me to be a suicidal corporation.

As for 'doing something' - I really cannot imagine what can save them. Can you?

[edited by: Quadrille at 2:31 am (utc) on Oct. 13, 2008]