From the outset, 2008 has seen sweeping changes on eBay. New powerseller categories, new feedback rules, new manipulated search results, new listing durations, new fixed price fees, new listing fees, new powerseller discounts, new final value fee rates, new lower listing fees, new international visibility fees, new dashboards, new store qualifications, new Payment rules favouring Paypal, new store fees, new paypal payment retentions, new treatment of store listings in search and, while I could go on and on, let's finish this list with John Donahoe, the new CEO overseeing this wholesale metamorphosis.

Initially these changes created some very vocal outrage among even the most diehard eBayers. Strikes and boycotts ensued and still the changes came and eBay have never waivered. eBay Live would have been dead this year if it weren't for incensed sellers shouting their disgust at speakers. Even now, as the crucial holiday season approaches, eBayers are bracing themselves for more changes, more inevitable glitches and more competition from the big boys who needn't risk any significant cash to place massive inventories on the site and increasingly dominate many product categories.

However, eBay can claim an increase in listing growth this year in terms of numbers. But the cut in listing fees and the huge volume of listings that now earn eBay little, if anything, must be a worry for the bean counters in San Jose. Are sell thru rates improved? The scant stats we can find suggest not, but they do appear to make things look no worse than they were. Yet, with that said, the anecdotal evidence from forums and blogs suggest sales are worse and many also point to less competition between buyers squeezing the margins being realized thin enough that even a super-model would squeal.

I'm not convinced the flow of increased final value fees will have met the shortfall of listings revenue yet and I'm sure eBay will not provide a detailed revenue breakdown anytime soon to help analysts judge the true performance. So come the next quarterly report I'm expecting to hear how the increasing strength of the US dollar lately has been a big factor in the reported numbers when, in recent quarters, it was never reported as a significant factor in eBay's strong earnings growth as the dollar weakened dramatically! eBay know only too well that the Wall Street analysts don't care about what happened a few months ago.

But this is important to me. In 2006 I was told that eBay Stores inventory was the reason eBay was losing it's magic and the solution was to hike fees and force people to switch to core. The core listings didn't increase and no magic reappeared. For this reason I now have a healthy doubt about eBay's judgement concerning its own marketplace. I accept that was Meg Whitman's and Bill Cobb's time but right up until they departed earlier this year I didn't see one analyst question the apparent mistakes back then or seek any explanations. I now see little point in reading the analysts blogs and websites as they prefer to guess about the future based largely on PR BS while no more analysing the events that have actually happened than fly in the air!

So what are smaller sellers thinking? A few make their voices heard on forums like ours and in blogs. Yet the vast majority of eBay sellers rarely look at eBay's boards or blog, never mind the independent, uncensored discussion sites. My guess is many are quietly dropping their modest eBay activity. If it wasn't a significant contributor to their household budget then the stresses and pressures have probably made them depart. Their absence is now covered up in the stats by the likes of Buy.com and other so called "Diamond Powersellers". But what about the sellers still active in their niches where the arrival of the big boys has yet to impact? Are they anticipating - or even aware - of the changes coming? Do any of the smaller sellers that have stuck by eBay thus far have alternative plans at all?

eBay have timed this shake up well. They have correctly judged that Amazon is their only serious competition and they've kept the headline final value fees just about right to remain competitive. Alternative sites like eBid have virtually doubled in size during the past year based on listing counts and they also report a strong growth in sales. But while these improved numbers may be dramatic for the likes of eBid, they are small potatoes in terms of negative stats to the likes of eBay. At the risk of sounding harsh, many of the sellers eBay has lost and alternatives have gained will be hobbyists and amateurs. I doubt many serious sellers needing to realise regular profit have burned their bridges with eBay yet as, Amazon aside, no alternative has the muscle to market themselves anywhere near adequately enough to buyers.

So eBay are getting things largely their own way with little competition to worry them. As a result they can drive this mass of reconstruction forward at an incredible pace without fear of predators in a competitive sense and able to maintain traditional seller revenue until the new favoured sellers income kicks in. Of course they knew some collateral damage would occur along the way as it does on any major site being redeveloped. Why do you think they announced the cancellation of eBay Live in 2009 well before this years event had event taken place? Few people will hear about the majority of "casualties" and "retirements" over the coming months as they aren't big enough to be heard and it's not in the nature of individuals to admit defeat publicly anyway.

By now you may be reading my words as if I'm attacking eBay and blaming them for all the world's woes but I'm not. The internet today is a very different place to the wild web frontier days when small traders enjoyed bidding wars and created the steam that powered eBay Inc. in to life. Nowadays eBay and eBayers are in online competition with Amazon, Walmart and virtually every major retailer of any note. They've made the call that they can't go any further as they are and they need to become a service provider to corporates rather than a website for hobbyists. They aren't a trading site any longer, they are a huge marketing business. Their strength is the web traffic they attract, pure and simple. Every eyeball is a potential buyer and all serious retailers know it. If you don't catch the eye, you don't sell which means your products need to be placed where the eyeballs are. So forget all the arguments about buyers being where the sellers are or vice versa. The eyeballs are on eBay because eBay invests millions every month to attract them. If you have big traffic numbers then you can command big bucks for marketing and advertising. What eBay are good at is getting clicks thru to their website. Everything else follows that single activity that eBay do so well.

How many times has someone bought a website auction script thinking they will grab a piece of eBay's pie? Barely a day passes without a new ProBid powered site appearing. Instantly they launch they go after sellers. Why? Because sellers might pay some fees but mostly it's because they will provide the products to sell. Why try and attract buyers to an empty shop? Even when some items are put on the shelves few sites make any genuinely serious attempt to attract buyers and, in truth, most would be wasting their time if they did. Amazon aside, none have the vast range of products and truly competitive prices to make their site sticky enough to justify significant money being thrown at traffic generation. Poor product choice and uncompetitive prices make the eyeballs roll on by without stopping. Until an alternative site offers a browsing experience that rivals eBay in terms of interest to buyers, they don't even have a finished product to build a marketing plan for and serious levels of paid for advertising would more than likely be an expressway to ruin.

The result is a handful of established alternatives patiently plugging away moving forward at a snails pace if truth were admitted. In my opinion the best of the alternatives is eBid.net. But to be one of the best alternatives while they still have less than 10% of the listings eBay.com can boast and a fee model that, while highly attractive to sellers, will never underpin a serious marketing budget just illustrates the scale of the gulph between eBay and the pack. To their credit eBid have hung in for some years now and patiently developed a good qality, reliable venue largely on the back of disgruntled eBayers and hobby sellers while relying mainly on natural search results from Google & Co to generate modest sales. Anyone that truly understands business must recognize eBid's perfomance has been exceptional in what is probably one of the hardest business concepts to tackle on the internet today. eBay capitalised on being among the first serious user applications on the internet and I doubt very much whether anyone at eBay believes they could do it again starting now.

By now you must be asking yourself where this article is leading. I've basically suggested that the small guy hasn't a future selling on eBay. I've also suggested that none of the alternative venues have a hope in hell of replacing eBay for these sellers. So it's all doom and gloom right? But let me turn this round now. Instead of you asking where I'm going with this article, let me ask those sellers where they are going? And let me ask the alternative venues where they are going?

It's all well and good people like me offering thoughts and opinions but I'm not taking any risks. I've nothing to lose. eBay's OK Jack, so let's look around to see if there could be a bright future for smaller sellers and alternative venues. Just because I've painted a bleak, challenging picture doesn't mean everyone should give up and get a real job! I've presented a problem that needs a solution.

Properly identifying the problem is the first and most crucial part of any solution and, if people can take their selfish blinkers off for just a moment and think about things, they will realise the only way forward to the utopia they all want is by working together. If the smaller sellers who have given up eBaying or are continuing to struggle on for now could only start thinking collectively and realise their strength is shared between them then one half of the problem is largely solved. If only a venue like eBid could display the balls needed to accept that, without these sellers, their product will never be properly finished and this means, no matter what they spend on marketing, they will never get the amount of eyeballs needed to stick, browse, bid, buy and return regularly to satisfy sellers or justify a fee structure that will realise their ambitions.

I realise these are massive asks but is there anyone out there that can rally the sellers together to speak with one voice and gel as a unified movement? Can petty bickering and the nonsense the internet seems to bring out in people be put aside? Is eBid or any other alternative venue ready to accept that partnering with such an organisation is the way forward? Unless a venue is willing to invest in the sellers in return for them investing in the venue then I'm afraid we will be destined for many more years as we are.

Let me be blunt. If people really believe marketing an alternative to compete with eBay can be achieved with branded sticky tape and leaflets in packages then I'm still in with shout to make the White House later this year!

I appreciate the odds are against this ever getting off the ground as it will take some serious nerve to take the risks involved. Who is willing to commit to sharing a significant chunk of their website ownership and future dreams of success in return for a serious long term committment by sellers to build the finished product that will have people falling over themselves to fund the birth of a new eBay? If you need to think very long about it, you probably aren't the right venue or seller.

If you find yourself dismissing this idea then I guess your glass is half empty already and nothing is likely to change around you for many years to come. Like it or not, the prize will eventually go to the people who have the balls to take the risk, have the vision of what could be, are wiling to make a committment and will work tirelessly toward the goal. Everyone else will be the also rans.

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