eBay dying?

These days I find myself purchasig from coupon type sites (such as scoopon.com.au and it's alternatives) more frequently than I purchase from eBay. Probably because they are one off deals that are sent directly to my inbox.

Having said that I know a couple of eBay merchants personally, and as far as they are concerned business is still booming.

It of course depends on what you are selling.

But eBay is facing stiffer competition. Amazon continues to greatly expand the products it sells and who can offer a product. Etsy targets a niche that would otherwise almost default to eBay.

And for years eBay has, frankly, been a jerk (about as polite as I can put it) when dealing with sellers and pricing, limiting PayPal accounts, and implementing one of the worst affiliate programs.

As for traffic, after the Panda update in Google earlier this year I don't think there is any question that eBay greatly benefited, and as a result many eBay listings are getting more traffic.

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Based on my own experience as a buyer, Ebay is far from dying. I buy
regularly on Ebay and I can say with confidence that many sellers on Ebay
are doing quite well.

It all depends on what you're selling.

I thought eBay banned the sale of eBooks in 2008? Did they re-instate the sale of digital goods? eBya shot themselves in the foot with the introduction of Kijiji. But I guess they thought they could make a killing on the ads.

Maybe 'Ebay is dying' is a slight exaggeration, but they certainly have an 'illness' that needs medication lol.... they have alienated their core income providers with huge multiple fees and little or no support (automated emails is not support), the real sellers who want and need a decent profit margin have moved on to other avenues or use Ebay less. To be able to survive in Ebay as a full time seller I think you need minimum profit margins and stick to them, find a unique product, be able to bulk buy and/or import and maybe not rely on Ebay as your soul source of income. Ebay is still a monster and is possibly the cheapest way to hit a large audience but to make it profitable and sustain your profits is proving very difficult indeed. I still sell and purchase there though no where near as often, it is a great source for research and the odd bargain if you're lucky and know how it works, you can still grab great bargains from sellers who don't know how to use it correctly but these are few and far between.
I would never wish any business to fail because alot of people's livelihoods rely on Ebay being run correctly, but it isn't being run correctly, Ebay gives nothing back to its members, it doesn't help its sellers, it doesn't care about giving back, it is being run selfishly and hence there is a price to pay for that, be it now or in the near future.
All they need is new blood, someone at the top who can take it by the balls and get it back on track instead of the big fat cats at the present who don't give a toss except for their own pockets. They haven't killed Ebay, they've just made it a 'not so nice' place to trade and an unfair place to trade, when this happens people do inevitably move onto somewhere else, they then have to reply on newcomers who then have to go through the time to learn that it's not what it's cracked up to be by the media and that it isn't such a nice place afterall. The good news for Ebay is that there is almost a bottomless pit of newcomers so they think they can continue to do what they want whenever they want and ignore the requests of its members, and the sad part is they are probably right.
Maybe one day they will value its sellers, they will modify their fees and make the fees sensible and listen to its core members and action better policies. One can only hope but I feel that their greed will not let them change.

I don't use Ebay as much as I used to, but something I realized when selling earlier this year is that taking more of a sales copy approach to the description can make a huge difference.

I sold some shop fittings that the buyer could have bought for far less from a "plain" listing and shoes that were nothing special went for a good price because I made them sound special (well, they were to me).

So, I think with the right approach, sales are still there to be made, as always.

Terry

Me too Andy, most of us do when we know it's a bargain, I think the trick is to not get too involved in bidding for bidding's sake, it's so easy to get into a bidding war as none of us like to lose lol.... we can easily end up paying too much for an item just because we want to win an auction.
I use Ebay more for research to check product sales viability and what's trending and if I come across a bargain then fine. It is still a great place for research and can be very addictive, and I think it will always be the place to go to grab a large audience quickly for little money compared to other avenues. Just wish they would listen to its members, they could have been even bigger than they are at present.

Building backlinks and SEO cost way more and eBay has the traffic you need the product only. :p