I have to dis-agree with you 🙂. IMO ebay has known for years that the reason for its early success and continued prosperity has been its army of private sellers. As private sellers have been telling them for years "Private sellers are also buyers". Something the CEO at last acknowledged recently by saying he had evidence that "Buyers who also sell tend to buy twice as much as buyers who don't sell."
But ebay has been looking at the spectacular success of amazon with its mostly business seller model and tried to emulate it by encouraging business sellers and ignoring the consequences of moving ebay towards that model, making ebay less welcoming (or even useful) to private sellers.
That's why, over those same years, ebay has rolled out increasingly generous terms for private sellers in an effort to keep the numbers up. From an occasional Free Listing Week End to Maximum £1 FVF Week Ends that became monthly. From 20(?) free listings a month to so many it became effectively Free to List and then the 70 / 80 % off FVFs.
All done as ebay became aware the the never ending queue of hopeful private sellers was getting shorter and they were not coming aboard at a rate that balanced and supported the growing number of business recruits. The result was too many businesses trying to make a profit from a declining number of private sellers / buyers. Then came FB Market and the other Free to Sell sites and someone at ebay hit the panic button so now ebay is Free to Sell for private sellers.
But not really, ebay thinks it can get away with another round of subterfuge with seller fees moved to buyers and knowing that the search is now totally biased towards Sponsored Listings, private sellers won't sell much without paying Sponsorship Fees. With ebay making money on their funds on Hold and whatever it can squeeze out of delivery companies.
Personally I can't see any of the above turning the ebay ship around before it hits the rocks. Ebay has, over the years, ruined its reputation with millions of private sellers, who all have family, friends and Social Media. Will they rush back to ebay after being badly treated the first-time around ?
With ebay now biased heavily towards business sellers and their needs and a search that prioritises Sponsored Listings to give visibility to, the new Free to Sell intake still stand little chance of selling enough to make them long-term, loyal sellers / buyers on ebay. IMO for many of them, listing a few items, few of which sell (even for an opening bid), waiting a week or two for the disappointing pay-out (that's if they're not scammed out of it by a false INA claim) and that will be enough.
So ebay will be back to square one again. Private sellers sick of a site that no longer works for them and leaving in droves. With the BSB sprouting its monthly crop of "Sales off a cliff in January / February / March / April etc. To me it's pointless trying to overlay Free to Sell on todays ebay. If ebay wants enough private sellers to support its businesses, it needs to look back to when it did attract them in huge numbers and why they came here.
It certainly wasn't to always be at the back of the queue for visibility. It wasn't to give their stuff away for next-to-nothing to the flocks of 'Watching' vultures. It wasn't to have their funds put on Hold because there's a comma in the wrong place in their address. Or for their buyers to be told that they need protection from them. What ebay needs to do is make itself useful to them again and start working for them, not treat them as a never ending resource that works for ebay's benefit but can otherwise be ignored.
