The problem is simply that Ebay was never built to compete. It was built to provide a service though it has long been questionable about the quality of that service.
20 years ago, Ebay got away with it because it had no real competition, and they pretty much left sellers alone to conduct business and they reaped the benefit of that relationship. Now they are faced with endless competition from a myriad of competitors, many of whom actually stock products to sell. Whereas Ebay stocks nothing, sells nothing (beyond ad space), has no control over product availability or pricing, and can barely mitigate shipping costs which are exploding and endlessly meddle in seller affairs.
As an example, I used to buy Kobalt's "Zerust" draw liners and when I went to buy more, I found that despite the stated stock available none of the stores had any and none were sure if it was going to be in stock again. A check on Ebay found some available, but at higher cost. A look at the Zerust brand found a slightly better situation in regard to availability but even worse pricing and shipping costs bordering on the absurd.
A check at the local Home Depot finds that while they don't stock it in stores, I can order it and have it shipped to the store for free. And the cost, with my discount, was less than what it would cost on this platform. Add horrible marketing and even worse customer service and is it any wonder that Ebay went from being the place to go to being just another place to look at...maybe.
