Do you feel the ground shaking and hear the sound of distant thunder? That’s the sound of the coming stampede of Ebay sellers making a mass exodus to other sales venues.

Ebay has, once again, presented changes in their venue, many of which I predicted months ago, that will be sending a good portion of their sellers elsewhere to do business, leaving their stockholders in a long holding pattern, or perhaps experiencing new lows.

Starting last ast year, and much to my dismay, I started predicted eBay would lose a good portion of their market share to their competitors. It looks like this will continue to occur as the company implements their most recent changes. (Links to articles I’ve made eBay predictions are below.)

You see, eBay forgot who got them to where they are, and it wasn’t the buyers. They’ve spent entirely too much time trying to please the buyers, when it was the sellers who helped build the company. In my opinion, it may be too late to salvage their position in the marketplace now or in the future.

Since eBay has continued to raise the percentage they take on completed sales, I predicted eBay would discontinue listing fees altogether, and stated it was in their best interest to do so. Today, they’ve dramatically cut listing fees but have not eliminated them. Most sellers don’t mind paying a little more if their items sell, but if they don’t sell, they take a direct loss which isn’t acceptable.

While from time to time, the company runs special days offering sellers no listing fees, I still predict the time when eBay permanently offers no listing fees will be just around the next bend. However, by then, it will be too late to bring back those who’ve been grazing comfortably in another company’s pasture.

In their effort to make up for lost revenue and please their stockholders, other changes the company made will prove to be a big turn off to its sellers. Like the increase in fees for their PayPal services and their insistence that this is the only way to pay for fees when doing business with them. Forcing customers to use only the programs they provide will prove to be a mistake in the future. It’s cheaper for their sellers to go elsewhere and use other merchant account providers with more reasonable fees. No, the public isn’t going to let eBay make up their loss in revenue in this way.

Any reduction in fees will prove to be beneficial for those of us who use eBay to sell our wares, but the other restrictions I believe will be rejected in the market place. It may prove that eBay has, for too long, underestimated the intelligence of the customers who helped build them.

Ebay’s efforts to swing in the direction of retail sales by emphasizing fixed price selling is about four years too late. Companies like Amazon are not likely to surrender their market share to eBay without a fight.

What eBay might do next in their effort to increase revenue, will be to charge for their completed sales information. I predicted in an earlier article and I stand by it. Time will tell.

To re-establish their growth pattern, eBay will have to reinvigorate their seller base, and that isn’t going to be easy. In fact, they might have to reduce profits for a while to build future sales volume. This might very well put eBay stock in a lengthy holding pattern and create new stock lows. 

As I have stated in the past, what is bad for eBay can be good for us in the antique & collectible business. So, when they have specials, take advantage of them, like listing several items on free listing days. Try not to get caught in the traps they set like reserve price auctions and the other gimmicks they state will bring you greater returns but actually cost you more. “Keep it simple” is a good rule to use here. If you haven’t looked into other sales venues, this would be a good time to do some research.

Keep Skip McGrath and his newsletter close to you because I think he has the pulse of what eBay is doing down to a tee. You will find his many great resources available on our site. Don’t forget our friend the “ The Auction Rebel – Gary Hendrickson” as he demonstrates his method of being successful on eBay.

Ebay made a change in my life, and for that I am very grateful, but they’ve been very slow to change with the markets. They might have thought they were invincible. But, none of us are. I still hope it isn’t too late for them. They’ve been a tremendous help to me and my family, and I thank them for that. God protects the humble, but if we try to do all things ourselves and even go down the wrong path, He allows for that too. I believe eBay has gone down the wrong path.

LINKS to my Previous eBay Article Predictions:

10/02/07 Will eBay Remain King of the Hill?
01/30/08 eBay Serves Scrambled Eggs
02/14/08 Is Ebay Running out of Juice?
03/25/08 eBay Fighting Hard in Wrong Direction

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Be cautious of those who tell you where to put your money unless you know where they have theirs.

Many months ago, I wrote a blog and news article stating it was time to sell silver and gold you might have in your possession, not knowing the danger this would place me in. At the time, silver was selling at about $16.00 an oz and the forecast from the silver bugs touted silver would go to $100 an ounce, while the gold bugs were looking for $5,000 an ounce.

Shortly after that, I started getting emails, from “reputable people” in the metals industry, nasty enough to make your hair stand on end and sinking so low as to request the news organizations that ran my articles rescind them. Of course, none of them did. These supposedly reputable people questioned my intellect and even my heritage. “Don’t you know the fundamentals of these markets,” several of them asked? I think they had forgotten the Hunt brothers, or wished to forget them, and I’m sure many weren’t even old enough to remember them.

Again, today, I am recommending you sell all the silver you have in your possession at the price of $12.00 or more. As I write this, the present price is about $12.50. My projections see silver retracing its charts back to $6.00. Oil is retreating like it is being chased by a band of hungry wolves, and while the dollar is gaining its strength, silver and gold are in a free fall.

Like I warned in my blog and articles earlier this year, the people touting these industrial metals, and that is all these metals are today, have been the ones selling them and have the most to gain by their sale. I wrote previously that they would never tell you to sell silver or gold no matter how high their prices went and this has proven to be true.

Today there are companies still touting the purchase of gold, even though the price is plummeting and people are losing their shirts. These metals are no longer a hedges against inflation because they have been replace by currencies that are much easier and quicker to trade. There’s no storage, interest, or shipping to be paid on currencies, either.

If you want to see other investments that have proven themselves over time and whose numbers are continuing to go up, go to www.31corp.com. — Daryle Lambert