I sold a laptop yesterday. It went for £180 plus £15 p&p.
eBay charged me £0.35p to list it (it would have been much more, but I started it at 99p) and £17.99 "final value fee". Then Paypal (also eBay) charged me £6.83 to receive the payment. That's £25.17 fees in all. Given that I don't overcharge for postage, I'm actually getting £154.83 for my laptop. Less if I've screwed up on postage.
They're charging me 14% and it's now obligatory to offer Paypal as a method of receiving payment, so you can't avoid it.
After the sale is concluded, both parties are invited to leave feedback for each other, but the seller is now no longer able to leave negative feedback for buyers who screw them about. Only buyers can leave negative feedback. They can also comment on communication, description, postal costs etc., with a star rating that's not visible to the seller.
eBay have got too greedy. Theirs is the ultimate e-business model - they buy nothing, they sell nothing and they ship nothing. Yet they rake it in. I wouldn't mind so much, but when a buyer refuses to pay (the last one swears blind he only had the item in his watchlist and never placed a bid, so could I please "cancel the transaction?") I can't do anything about it. Yet he can leave me shitty feedback!
Yeah, they have a dispute resolution process, but it's awful. I've had some fees refunded, but it's a pain in the neck and I'd much rather just go back to the way it used to be where the buyer and the seller left each other feedback on an equal footing. There's no trust left any more.
But that's not all. When I'm after buying something, I have to wade through huge numbers of commercial offerings to get to the few genuine private sellers who actually have stuff that I might want to buy. eBay's chock full of fraudsters, scam-merchants and bullshit artists and unless you're very clued up at recognising them, you're going to get ripped off.
Have eBay got too big for their boots?