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Foreshadowing collapse of ebay
 

I stumbled upon this chart that shows almost a perfect example of exponential blowoff. It shows growth in number of ebay daily auctions. The growth is exponential and clearly shows how financial markets extract fees. Ebay charges listing fees for its auctions and at this point extracts as much fees as possible from this market. However, exponential blowoffs are never sustainable and will collapse to the point of its initial breakout, that is, about 20 million auction listings on this chart.

http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/425/ebayy.png

Furthermore when exponential collapses occur, they are typically terminal or take very long term to correct. What the chart also augurs is the financial bankrupting of its sellers.

The chart below shows long term trend of ebay stock price and where it's headed in my opinion.

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/5602/ebay1u.png

Ebay Earnings Chart are Even Worse that their stock Price Chart.

Analysts projections for Ebays future are Not that good either

You May also find these Video Clips of Ebay CEO John Donahue Interesting: Part 4/4 - eBay CEO John Donahoe Keynotes Consumer Empowerment Conference on Vimeo

Check out part 4/4 when he talks about China then "Light Touch Regulations"

Don't worry Ebay is not going anywhere. No matter how much we wish it was true, there is simply no other site that can generate sales for small time sellers that do not want the hassle of setting up there own webfront.
Ecrater is about the only other viable option, but most all of their sales are generated from Google search/shopping.
Google would probably be the only company capable of starting up a successful auction site, a business model Ebay is desperately trying to shed.