Face if folks, we are in the middle of the mega search engine website wars. I saw this coming a year ago. So what is next....Google does not have any actual auctions going, so ebay is safe there and they worded it that way. What they do have is a lot of ebay stores that are like mini websites being picked up by froogle and others. So ebay is going to raise new money knowing this. B.....u.....t.....what if google goes into the auction business? Maybe they are just staging themselves for this. Why is google doing this, because ebay was becoming the walmart of the internet with one giant product search engine that could go against google. Thats why yahoo and msn are teaming up with ebay to size themselves against google growth and recognition.
My advise is you must build websites if you rely on the internet for income. I have been making a living on the net now for 3 years since I quite my 25 year career. My internet marketing is paying off. Yes I rely on ebay stores and will pay the upcharge by raising my prices, but in the long run I will eventually wean myself of auctions and an ebay store.