I am both a buyer and a seller, and I appreciate hearing how others look at eBay and the bidding process. I see eBay as trying to evolve to a non-auction-based marketplace with regular sellers (rather than one-off sales), and I am trying to evolve my practices to take full advantage of the opportunity.

As much as eBay's direction has bothered me at times, it is still the only game in town. No one else has put together a comparable site for either broad merchandise or hobby specialties that attracts bids/sales the way eBay has for the past decade. I wish there were competitors, but I have to gravitate toward the system that works.