Ebay has been around for quite some time, and a lot of their members have been both buyers and sellers. But as with all businesses, they became quite big, and forgot who or what they were about.
So a lot of sellers have left them, and gone onto other auction sites for specialist items, regional sales sites, and, of course, direct sales through online classifieds.
But for many products, especially lower value items, only free online auctions really make a lot of sense for both buyers and sellers. However, for the auction site, this means that they have to make revenue through advertising on the site.
It could work once the advertising market returns to strength, but advertising supported sites do have a tough time at the moment. Let’s see.