#33 Anyone who does not have their own webby and other platforms or outlets is crazy anyway in the current climate!
I started my own website just under a year ago and its starting to now outperform eBay. Hell, we havnt even fully optimised it yet! I also sell privately to a number of US and European wholesalers and am crrently looking at 2 other platforms. I sell "collectables" so although eBay would appear to be the "one and only" outlet thats not true. There are a number of alternatives (albeit smaller) in the UK and USA and with a much better class of clientelle.
What you find with a website is that you get a better class of customer who spends more and makes far less trouble. Whereas on eBay you get the bottom feeders and the scammers.
You do need to develop multiple income streams (especially in these hard times) in case one gets pulled.
The story you quote does not surprise me. One of the UK powersellers who sold branded cosmetics takes her own photographs of the products and they are of very high quality. She hit a similar problem with "vero" even though she could prove they were her own photos and she was an "approved" seller. I never found out how she got on but being a smaller seller she had no recourse to legal action.
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