Moving Away From Ebay

The free listing days have been around for several years now and there were other special offers in the past here and there. I haven't paid listing fees for years, but it looks like that will change unless I sell everything I list.

When I did pay fees - it was 10 cents per item, not 30 cents. (for items starting at 99c. and less)

A fundamental change in policy. Historically ebay favored auctions as they sold much more often than buy-it-now. I personally would not like to see an even higher proportion of buy-it-now as a typical philatelic search yields about 80% fixed price items and only 20% auctions.

ebay was a lot more fun when it functioned as mainly an auction market and not a giant retail price list.

It all depends on your shopping/buying habits and preferences.

Personally, as a buyer, I infintely prefer fixed price/best offer listings to auctions, and 90% of my purchases on ebay are made that way. I don't want to have to put a prospective purchase on hold just because I have other pending bids out there that (1) are as many as ten days away, (2) I don't know what I actually will be spending, and (3) I may not win anyway.

For every buyer out there that prefers auctions, there's one who prefer fixed-price shopping (probably more actually, or the balance of auctions to fixed price would not have shifted the way it has).

I prefer fix price also

Mostly ebay but for my lower priced Big Blue stamps Bid Start poor selection,Stamps2Go better selection.

As a seller, I prefer auctions. I rather set prices low and let the market at that time determine the final price. This especially helps with postal history where it can be hard to determine a price by other means. I also like to determine when items end and ship everything at once instead of piece meal here and there.

I prefer fixed price for cheaper stamps, auction for more expensive ones. I buy better items fixed price as well if the price is right.

but I think the listing fees used to be lower than they are now.