eBay, you served me well back in the day, but now I have outgrown you.

For the last two or three months, I have had almost no sales on eBay. I typically run 10-20 auctions weekly, mainly for chip beads and eggs/spheres, and occasionally for some of our other items. After several months with few-to-no bids each week, I am letting eBay go.

I'm not entirely sure what the problem is. It might be that the competition is too vast. With 200 other people selling the exact same thing I am selling, how can I stand out? (I tried to list only the most rare stones, but I'm not having any luck with those lately either.) It could also be that buyers are less enchanted with eBay after the recent postal rate hike. What's the point in buying a bag of beads when you'll have to pay three dollars to get it to your house? As a buyer, I have been more and more shocked at the outrageous shipping fees on many auctions (I recently saw one store selling individual gemstones with a starting shipping fee of $10, and an additional $1.95 for each item after that--and these are items that weigh an ounce or less!), and it could very well be that others like me have grown disgusted with the eBay experience and are avoiding it.

eBay as a concept is wonderful. I love knowing that millions of people are browsing. I have used eBay as advertising for years--catch 'em in eBay and send 'em over to the store. But this only works when people are actually looking at my auctions, and these days people just are not doing that any more.

As my 20 auctions end tonight (in three minutes), I've got one bid. That will cover my week's fees. This week, I will not submit any more auctions. I may try again in the future, but it seems to be a lost cause at this point. If there are any other eBay sellers out there, feel free to share your thoughts on this.