I buy antiques, simple as that. But I have found that I am finding less and less to choose from on ebay. Are they trying to scare the antique seller away and only sell newer items that people can buy in quantity? Do they want to limit the sellers and focus on their competition with Amazon? It seems that way. I know that most antique sellers don't have a dozen of that same 1800s chest or the early 1900s bunting for baseball games.

So what's up?

I saw an article in the online Wall Street Journal the other day that substantiated my thoughts. The key point? Niche sites are offering lower fees.

These other sites feel that ebay has left an opening at the bottom to carve off a piece of their action, and they have a good point. If you have to pay for reserve amounts, increasing commissions, priority listings and then another commission using their transaction clearinghouse, you have seriously cut into the gross profit for a sale. Small business and individuals cannot survive on volume as a big box retailer can with their economies of scale. They need larger margins because they don't sell as much. So every day that ebay raises fees or adds new ones, they will lose sellers. But this may be their motivation. As a more mature company that happens to be publicly traded, shareholders want higher margins, profits and earnings. So maybe this is their quest.

Buyer Laziness

We have become spoiled. We've gotten used to going to the monster of all sites to shop and find anything and everything. So what's a buyer to do now? There are less items, less sellers. We are going to have to look elsewhere. So fire up your favorite search engine and do some searching for new bargains. I know that I will.

Here is a place I found to start your search http://auctions.nettop20.com/ they have rated some auctions.

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