I do buy some things from ebay, but it sure doesn't feel like the old days when there seemed to be a lot more home sellers around.

What I have noticed though is the absolute explosion of other businesses onto the internet and that I would guess is what is cutting into ebay sales.

Eg Where in the past, I often used to look at clothes on ebay, some brands now have their own online clearances. I was looking at a couple just the other day, then had a look at ebay and really, the ebay offerings looked a bit tired in comparison.

Then you have your daily deal sites which send out emails every day with ads, and often a cap put on postage costs.

There's gumtree which is free-works on big items, not so well on small.

Just about everything I have bought on ebay in the last year has been from  sellers who are obviously running  small businesses and they have mostly all been excellent. It's just that buyers have a lot more choice of sales sites now.