Well, I mean, if paying LOWER rates for my items than it would cost me to sell them at trade shows or local consignment stores or consignment auctions, or than it would cost me to set up and promote my own website... if that is stealing my money, somehow, by allowing me to make more than if I am able to make going it on my own, then yeah, I guess. The reality is, that even with the risks, those of us who are experienced in the market and categories that we sell in, we can sell here and make more, and more easily, than going elsewhere. I have been threatening to start my own website for a while now. However, I also know that that will involve a LOT more time out of me to get set up initially, and to maintain, UNLESS I want to pay a company to do that for me. We used to do that at the music store I worked at, we had a point of sale (cash register) system that kept track of our inventory and kept it all listed on our website. It SURE was nice, but it SURE was expensive, too. Cost us almost 500 bucks a month. Just for the service. And this was REGARDLESS of if we sold a single item or not. Now, I'm NOT saying that I like eBay's fees going up, or that I like the lessened protections we have as sellers, and that those seem to lessen every year.... BUT, the reality is, it's still better for most of us to still be here, selling here, or we'd have moved elsewhere.
I personally have been migrating off the site to a marketplace that specializes in my category, music instruments, parts, and accessories. Their fees are less than here by more than 2/3, and their traffic is now a little more than the traffic here in this category. I know this because almost all my listings are duplicated from here to there. That said, while the traffic has caught up or actually passed eBay's musical instrument traffic, and I KNOW this is true by my page view counters in my listings, the sales conversions are still not quite caught up over there to what they are here, as evidenced by the fact that most of the time, the sales between the two are pretty close or even. I HAVE had a few months where the other marketplace has been better, but I have had more months where they have been even (like this last month) or a little less over there. I dislike a lot of things here, but I have never once had ebay steal any of my money, in ANY way, shape, or form. I VOLUNTARILY give them what I give them, in exchange for using their marketplace. If that is somehow pretentious, then please explain how, because I just don't see it. And again, I agree that things are not as good here these days for sellers as they used to be.
