The problem with Craigslist is that it limits your market area. For example, I’ve seen guitars sell on Craigs that would have brought up to 50% more money if sold on eBay. But it does work well for selling vehicles and other such hard-to-ship stuff.

I’ve seen several sites that are trying to be “the new eBay” and they’ve all fallen short, primarily when it comes to buyer traffic. It’s going to take someone with deep pockets, like Amazon, Microsoft or Google to put a serious dent in eBay’s business.

The only way I see eBay rethinking this is if it impacts their stock price. That seems like the only thing they respond to.

The severe recession which is just now getting underway will hurt both sellers and eBay quite a lot. When push comes to shove, I suspect that eBay will resend this foolish feedback policy. But, then again, it is quite plausible that eBay does not care for small business sellers at all.

There are a few small competitors out there but they simply don’t have that much traffic, particularly buyer traffic. Some, like Etsy, operate in a specific niche and are only good for a narrow line of products and have those ’soup nazi’ like rules.

I think this most recent move does open a big door for a competitor to move into the small time seller arena. The question remains though is this a profitable niche for them to get into?

There will be big sellers at the top of many categories. However, I’ve already seen a reduction in the number of sellers in guitars and other music related niches. The big guys remain but the real deals with the small timers are drying up fast.

I’d guess for BANS that sticking with popular consumer items in the mid-to-high price range that are most often sold new should work OK. Items with a lot of used and hobby business, like guitars, might be hit harder.

I sold fairly actively there up until a little over a year ago. Rules/fee changes, search inconsistencies and other problems caused me to stop using it and search for other online “make money” opportunities. It’s too bad because it used to be better but it’s really selling out to corporate interests, both sellers and investors. It’s like if you woke up and found most the blogs you regularly visited owned by News Corp, NBC or Disney.