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What keeps eBay such a dominant auction site?
 

This thread is to try to understand better what is keeping eBay such a monopoly as far as auction sites go..

1. Is it the amount of people that have become reliant on the site to generate revenue?

2. Is it the amount of time they have been in the industry? Working out kinks and research in the market?

3. Lack of competent competion?

One of the biggest reasons I stay on eBay is the fact that the competitors seem to be laden with counterfeit sellers from China selling the same items I sell for a fraction of the price. Isn't there some way that eBay's competition could try to eliminate these sellers as eBay does?

Do you think that the amount of legit sellers that get suspended from eBay is a side effect of the effort to keep the counterfeit sellers from diluting the market?

For some reason it's hard for me to understand a company with such a bad track record still holding such a dominant share in a market that doesn't seem that hard/expensive to enter.. I'm just trying to get some other opinions on this matter to help shed the light on eBay's success! Thanks again guys, and all your help is really great!

Lack of real competition and Brand Name.

Buyers are like sheep. A lot of people do what friends, workmates do. ebay is a big suck in company.

I have been selling in ebay for the last 5 years and one thing that I find very interesting is that there are millions of ebay sellers that do not withdraw money from their paypal account. Myself included, I usually have several thousands in my paypal account just to purchase items from ebay rather than going to best buy or barnes and noble. At this point I think there are not much new money flowing into ebay transactions...just money that is already in the system going from one paypal account holder to another. Its almost like the barter system now.

ebay has buyers unlike any other site. most sites have sellers but you need buyers to buy from sellers to have the power that ebay has.

Also, is pretty big with promotion. Look at their huge adwords marketing campaigns, type in nearly anything into google, and ebay's sponsored results will appear.
And then there is the new TV and billboard ads...
It would take some massive marketing campaign and rebranding for any other site to over take ebay.

It the chicken and the egg conundrum. We have to use it because that is were most of the buyers are, and the buyers are their because that is were most of the sellers are. I remember the early days when Yahoo auctions and Ebay were real competitors. For a few months I would list 10 auctions on Ebay and the same 10 on Yahoo, Ebay always sold 200% more so eventually I stopped using Yahoo auctions.
Funny thing in Japan, the exact opposite happened. Yahoo auctions crushed Ebay, and to this day Ebay is still trying to get a foot hold there. I think it was who ever built up the membership the fastest and largest won. Many have tried to compete with Ebay, but have failed miserably. Only a huge company with deep pockets, a huge user base and some payment system in place that offers protection for both buyers and sellers would have a slight chance, but even then you run into the same problem of all the buyers being on Ebay.
Seriously, I don't see anyone taking them down on auctions, but their profits will drop and growth will stagnant as more of the buyers and sellers, fed up with scams and fees, move on to other websites and options to purchase and sell their items.

I used to like Yahoo. Several years ago they were a nice alternative

Yahoo was nice when it was free.

Yes but no one ever paid me! People would win my auctions and simply not pay. Then yahoo started requiring CC and eventually a SSN and there was ABSOLUTELY no incentive to sell there.