A number of factors may come into play in the forthcoming months if trends persist. Yup, Ebay will always be around, but maybe not in the size it was. At some point they can only charge so much and at that point they have charged too much. Some degrees of that are coming into play now with the Gas crunch. People are definitely evacuating Ebay because the cost of doing business it too great for them. Overhead fees/costs versus the amount of sales and profit.
I personally think Ebay is in an untenable situation even now and are scrambling for ways to keep the cash cows milk flowing. Watch for them to do some strange stuff for the sellers in the next couple months as summer sales can potentially fall off a lot.
Is this all doom and gloom? Have I run to a new venue? I'm thinking about diversifying again with action over at IOffer. Only because they are the next biggest venue. I already have a store at ecrater. But as we all know, how many buyers spend time shopping at these other venues. I believe my sales only occur at ecrater because they come in from a webpage on the net and make the purchase. Not because of their spending time on the site looking for interesting products to purchase.
Another aspect of what is going on with fuel prices driving the change in Americas economy is that people are staying home. I believe they will continue spending money on the internet because it is easier and convenient and even maybe cheaper to buy there than driving all over a big city looking for the elusive item.
Currently, my sales at Ebay are fairly constant, because I did some "forced selling" and have been selling laterally with my other products because of it.