dwm
So what your saying when it comes down to it is its better to makes smaller sites that niche to very specific buyers and just use that strategy to take small pieces away from bigger companies and see if you can profit off of getting bought?
Buy out is one way to do it, to be sure. Either way, as eBay continues to circle the wagons around its revenue and places further restrictions on sellers and buyers, the opportunities abound.
I know its a lose lose situation to try and completely compete with eBay but who is to say that these companies are not to be stopped?
I will: you will not stop eBay, and neither will anyone else.
Don't forget:
--> eBay's own financial statements show that the share of its income that auctions represents has been in steady decline for some time now (while their overall income has pretty much just gone up and up and up)
-->Huge 'next in market' competitors like Overstock and Amazon have spent millions trying to knock a dent in eBay's auction business, to essentially zero effect. (and don't even get started on Bidz, uBid et al.) Meanwhile, eBay has started edging in on those competitors by favouring fixed-price sales, large sellers like Buy.com, streamlining payments and invoicing, etc. etc. etc.
It is simply laughable to think that someone will come along and knock it out of place. In fact the only saving grace for such a notion, if one could even be said to exist, is that eBay will continue to move farther and farther away from the auction model that produced the bulk of its userbase but virtually none of its bottom line profits. So, once eBay is done with the auction model and more or less abandoned it to posterity, then sure, it is conceivable that someone else will snap it up. But not any sooner -- the little crumbs the giant lets drop from the table, eg. firearm sales, alternative currencies, buyer premium auctions, direct trades etc. -- are where the auction platform money is to be made.
Frank