eBay has a buyer base of about 40 million buyers and their stock is in the toilet. They dumped the CEO - Meg Wittman - and the new CEO needs to define the direction eBay is going. Small nickle dime sellers don't make the big bucks for eBay and cost a fortune in overhead (Trust & Safety department policing fraud employs 4,500 people alone). Giant businesses with high volume under integration contracts generate the big bucks. They will come as long as the buyers stay with eBay, eBay can sell access to these buyers to the mass markets of the big box retailers.
eBay just signed a deal with GM corporate to allow all the GM certified used cars to be listed on eBay for free! Local dealers can now list their entire used car inventory on eBay motors free and they only have to pay a fee upon sale. This isn't available to the individual Studebaker owner or even small used car lots and their paid listings will get lost in the volume of GM free listings. In addition the small lots can't compete especially since GM's cars come with a warranty - The listing fees now eat them alive - imagine what will now happen to their sales percentages and how many listing fees they will have to eat on no-sales when the new car dealer across the street lists theirs repeatedly for free. Remember also that most of their used cars also come from the new car dealers trade-ins that the dealers ran thru the auctions. The dealers will now cherry pick even more of the cars eroding the available inventory that these small used car lots have available to them further eroding their business. The same thing will happen to the thousands of new product sellers on eBay if the big box stores get integrated. But can integration with Walmart,s BestBuy's, Circuit City's etc. online buying website be far behind? Even WalMart can't ignore an active buyer base of 40 million. Imagine: Whenever you need anything, "Ebay" it and the offerings from all the big box stores and everyone in the world selling that widget are shown. Comparison shopping taken to the next level. Click on each item you want regardless of vendor, pay with PayPal, PayPal divies up the payment to the applicable stores and you pick up your merchandise from your local WalMart, Best Buy etc. w/ no shipping or have it delivered - your option! Do your weekly shopping from your predefined shopping list, click, pay, and it is bagged and waiting for you at Walmart drive-thru! eBay will become the "Google" of shopping and get a piece of the entire national GDP in the process. Better than a bunch of individuals selling $10 phono records. Small sellers know they will never be able to compete. Flea Markets were great when they started but soon ran out of product and started offering new merchandise. When was the last time you found something cheaper at a flea market than at WalMart? eBay is obviously trying to prevent themselves from becomming the FleaMarket industry of the new Millenium. There will always be a niche for the flea market sellers but their costs will continue to climb - i.e listing fees, etc. This is why eBay's policies are now totally geared to creating a "positive buying experience" even at the expense of killing the seller. eBay Rule 1) The buyer is always right eBay rule 2) if the buyer is wrong, see rule #1. If the seller looses and goes out of business, so what? There are plenty of other sellers waiting to take that defunct sellers place and eBay knows it. Remember the first rule of commerce - As long as there are buyers there will ALWAYS be sellers. BUT without buyers eBay is dead and eBay knows it. The Sellers strike will be nice but most sellers are greedy and will just list under another id to capture all the sales from all the other sellers they hope will honor the boycott. And buyers will just buy from whomever is listing. Will eBay see a decline in fees? I doubt it. Even if they do will they care? I doubt it. There are about 2 million sellers on eBay what percentage do you really think will go along with the boycott? I will and hope you all do too.