It's a sad day for any ebay faithful, as one of the best merchants in ebay history has finally pulled all his listings. Emovieposter.com has finally listed their last poster, as of today they have no more items on ebay.
1st check their feedback to see the guy's bonafides (warning this link is to a ebay page)
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAP...E427A4D085E74E
Now here is why the guy left, couldn't have said it better myself, although it is rather long.
My name is Bruce Hershenson and I am the owner of emovieposter.com. I joined eBay in 1998, and in 2000 I moved my entire mail-order business of vintage movie posters to eBay, and since that time I have sold 300,000 movie posters on eBay, for total sales of $16 million (3 million in 2007 alone).
In all that time, I have auctioned all of my items with 99 cents start bid, and no reserve, the very kind of auctions that made eBay so successful when they first "took off".
The recent price changes affect my business greatly. They will result in the fees I pay going up 40% annually! If I were to achieve the 5% discount eBay is offering a very select few, my fees would go up by approximately 27%. If I were to achieve the 15% discount, my fees would go up by approximately 13%.
I feel that the price increases are extremely misguided. Normally, companies only raise rates when THEIR costs increase, or when they are delivering better results to their customers. In THIS case, eBay's costs have not risen and they are not only NOT delivering better results, but they are actually delivering lesser results (lower sellthrough rates and lower ASPs). Any company that did not perceive themselves as a monopoly would never raise their rates under these circumstances, but, if you feel your customers have nowhere else to go, then you CAN raise their rates, to make up for the lower profits you are having due to the lesser results you are realizing.
eBay has miscalculated in my case. I have to examine how much I pay eBay per year, and what I received in return for that money. I have concluded that I can do far better opening up my own auction on my own site. Unlike many other sellers, I had my own business for 10 years prior to starting on eBay, so I am now reversing the process I started in 2000! At that time, I moved my entire business ONTO eBay, and in 2008, I am moving my entire business OFF of eBay.
I really don't understand why eBay would drastically raise their rates on people like myself, who sell 100% of what they list, and have "fun" true auctions, where all the final prices are set by two or more actual bidders (the very kinds of auctions that made eBay so popular), and I have virtually perfect feedback (only 14 negatives in 300,000 transactions!).
What is equally difficult to understand is that eBay has slashed their rates to media sellers only, who sell very little of what they list, and who have generally mediocre feedback, and who often charge disproportionately high shipping, which eBay says is their number one concern! It also is odd that eBay chose these sellers to be the first recipients of their new "non-level playing field", for I can see no reason to single out these sellers as being especially important to eBay.
But it is not solely an issue of rates that is causing me to leave eBay. I believe their recent changes to feedback will have a disastrous effect on their company. I believe they made those changes because their research showed that buyers do not return to the site (either ever, or as often) because of dissatisfaction over high shipping, and because they get upset when a seller leaves negative feedback on them. So they made their recent changes (primarily trying to force sellers to lower shipping rates, and stop leaving "bad feedback") because they think that will improve sales.
I believe they are completely mistaken. In spite of what their research shows, I believe the number one reason buyers buy less often (or quit the site) is because they were cheated in some fashion. Similarly, I believe the number one reason sellers sell less (or quit selling altogether) is because they are tired of having buyers who never pay. The solution to both these problems is to verify all other users on the site (both buyers and sellers). When a buyer or seller breaks the rules, eBay could then ban that PERSON, and not just that ID (which has no effect, because the person can get a new ID, under the current rules). If all users are verified, then a bad buyer or seller will be banned, and they can't easily get back on.
I believe eBay is aware of both these problems, but there are two things that prevent them from implementing my solution. One is that verifying all users would mean they would have to admit they would actually have something like 80 million users, instead of the 250 million users they claim (which counts all IDs as separate people, which everybody knows is complete fiction). The other thing is that eBay would have to have a REAL Trust and Safety department which would need to go after bad buyers and sellers, both with police and through the courts, and that would certainly be expensive, and would not bring eBay any additional income in the short term. Under the current setup, eBay benefits greatly from the problems that beset the site. Many "bad sellers" are among the largest sellers, and pay eBay great amounts of fees. Many "bad buyers" cause items to have to be relisted a second time, and this generates a HUGE amount of revenue for eBay in listing fees they never refund (and surely many people never bother to get a refund of their final value fees, so that is an additional revenue source as well).
To sum up, eBay keeps raising the fees sellers pay, without delivering additional value of any kind, and in fact recent years have seen a deterioration of the value they have provided.
They also continually micromanage their sellers, taking control of a greater and greater percentage of their businesses. Sometime in the middle of April, I will hold my last eBay auction, and I will hold my first auction on my website
http://www.emovieposter.com.
I am currently in negotiations with other major sellers of collectibles and antiques, trying to help them leave eBay as well, and set up similar auctions on their own sites. I have hope that, at some time in the future, I can help set up an auction site SOLELY for collectibles and antiques, so that all of the smaller sellers on eBay will have a place to sell on that is run by actual sellers, and which truly only does provide a platform for them to sell from. I believe such a site would be very welcomed by almost all sellers of collectibles and antiques. Bruce Hershenson President, eMoviePoster.com
emovieposter to ebay "take your new fees and rules and shove it!" 
Are you an English major? Do me a favor and trim your posts. They will not be read if they are verbose.
