I am one of those disgruntled sellers who would be thrilled to see a true competitor for ebay. Ebay's recent fee hike provided the impetus that I needed to move all of my inventory onto my independent vintage clothing website and close my ebay store. As much as I'm bothered by the fee hike, it's actually the utter lack of logical customer service that is driving me off of ebay all together. Sales for the last six months have been truly dreary, but instead of striving to make ebay a better place, the powers that be are deciding to charge higher fees while reducing the quality of service. Their recent institution of assanine policies such as looking the other way when power sellers are shill bidding, and excluding stores listings from the search function have made ebay an increasingly hostile place to trade. Instead of spending $200 or more per month on ebay fees, I'm going to spend it on Google ads to promote my own site. I currently use paypal as the shopping cart service on my website, but am in the process of switching over to Google Checkout so I can avoid putting any more of my hard earned cash into ebay's coffers. If Google could produce a high quality auction site that is concerned with quality service to both buyers and sellers, I'd be there in a heartbeat.

What if Google incorporated an auction function into Google Checkout? Then merchants like Audrey could draw traffic with Google ads and have the advantages of the auction pricing mechanism without eBay fees. Of course, there would be Google fees, but competition would be nice.

My problem with Ebay is the fact that obvious reproduction, misrepresented, non-licensed items continue to be allowed. The uninformed novice buyer on this site is continually taken advantage of.

There are numerous sellers that hide behind private feedback and private auctions. I've seen more that one seller with over 30 negative comments in the span of six months using this technique.

It seems that as long as you pay your invoice, you can deceive and distort on Ebay.

Customer service is a joke. Their customer service consists of automated responses to real concerns. You can not speak to a human being.

Anything goes!

I applaud Ebay for increasing the fees for those "Powersellers and Ebay stores". These folks are always sellers that operate out of their homes and use the Ebay website to reach millions of customers with almost no overhead. Then they whine about paying fees to access that market. Many of their listings are just Buy It Now (BIN) and are not auctions at all. They clog the website with junk they resell on Ebay. Save Ebay from the "Powersellers and Ebay Stores" and give it back to the people.

There are alternative auction sites: Amazon and Yahoo are as old as Ebay, but the owners don't promote the sites. Therefore, no traffic at all.

While I agree that some of the Ebay stores do help ruin it, I still put the blame on Ebay for not letting me sort or search and exclude Buy It Now auctions.

I applaud eBay for trying to relevel the playing field. Stores now take up almost 100% of my searches, the purchasing power of the little guy is getting lost in the enormity of stores. A fluid market place takes representation from all players, its my hope that the fee hike brings the auctioned items back in play and puts the growth of stores back in check.

Are you kidding me, Google can't even get Checkout right, now you want them to build an entire auction marketplace, get out of here. Need I remind you that despite all its "innovation" and acquisitions, Google still receives more than 90% of its revenue from Ads and Search. No other true businesses have come out of the inflated behemoth.

Google seems to have spread themselves thin these days releasing too many products. They need to get one product right before they release another 10. Google checkout isn't working correctly. Even their search engine results are in tatters.

I am sorry, its taken...

Go for it Google.
It 'll be my day.
 
And I trust you'll never fall into that
disgusting suicidal policy of feeBay...

Grtz from Belgium.

Try www.swapblaster.com . This site has a unique approach to selling and it costs only 7c after coming out from its beta state. For the next 6 months the buying and selling will be free. The approach may be strange in the beginning but you will get a feel of it, trust me. Go through the wiki pages and spread this word around. I believe this will be an integrated solution for all your day to day needs, material and non-material. Let us make this movement successful and find some NIRVANA in the sphere of online transactions. Good LUCK and God BLESS AMERICA.

I would completely closed my ebay store and move to Google the day they opened an auction site. GoogleBay would be a smashing hit. More than just the disgruntled would make the move. Most sellers on ebay would give it a try because they are interested in selling their products.