Granted we’re in the dog days of summer as I write this but still I was shocked to see the decline in listing volumes on eBay both at set price (55,370) and auction 9,977. Yes there have been some listing special days and we’ve allowed some of our inventory to time out but there’s also the pouring in of stuff from this summer’s World Jamboree. I blogged about this back in May and we’re down nearly 20% from there. We’re back to 2005 levels and lower. Interesting.

I’ve been of the opinion for a while that eBay is NOT a technology company. If it were, we’d get better service at a lower price over time. We’re getting the exact opposite. They’re looking desperate as they’ve been running more listing fee specials trying to boost their GMV (gross merchandise volume) as that’s a metric the stock market analysts watch. Its not lasting though, IMHO. I know of several dealers that have dropped eBay as a channel. The ‘take’ rate, eBay and PayPal fees, are truly onerous particularly for the price point of our collectibles. We’re doing as much private placement activity as ever before or through our web-site shopping cart.

Not sure where this goes but the trend is clear (when in this kind of economy one would expect eBay volumes to tick up not down).