It is the whole chicken and the egg scenario. You need a large number of sellers to get the buyers and you need a large number of buyers to get the sellers. In the beginning, Ebay was one of the first to get a large number of sellers and eventually stomped Yahoo auction into the ground, in Japan Yahoo got them first and stomped Ebay into the ground.
Ebay is not going anywhere as the #1 auction site, but they are more vulnerable then they have every been. Probably only Google or Amazon could realistically take them on, with their huge user base and secured payment options, but they have not indicated they want to yet.
For now the 2 best alternatives sites for non-specialized goods are ioffer.com and ecrater.com with it fast froogle/google sales integration and large number of items for sale. Neither, of them will give you Ebay numbers, but if properly used should give you 20-30% monthly sales.
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