I haven't been selling long, but I notice that people are experiencing a noticable slump  in sales. On some of my listings, but the best example is this item 271625891835 it is a mobile phone from China and really says it all.. 

If you look to the right at the top directly under my seller information, you will see an external advert (I cant redirect anyone from Ebay, but Ebay can) The item is exactly what I am selling and they are selling it with free shipping at less than cost. This same advert is at the very bottom of my listing only in triplicate. The external add has a good marketing ploy offering this price for only a few hours.

Thanks alot Ebay.

This is insane, redirecting my customers (and ebays customers) to an external site that can have a 39% off sale for just 4 hours and take business away from Ebay and myself while I pay for the listing and then have to pay 10% on the sale and then "without precident I am sure" pay 10% on postage to Ebay.for a service that they are not even connected to.

So check out the advertising on your listing, if someone clicks on any ad, it will take them to a land far from Ebay and far from you.

Its obvious that selling on Ebay is no where near as profitable or smart as just placing a external advert and let Ebays clever engines do the rest for you.

I am sure that the marketing arm of Ebay is showing an upsurge in profit, if only someone was smart enough to look into the sellers downturn with the external ad listing up turn.

My product is selling at $117 plus $20 express delivery Ebay would have got a massive $11.70 for product and $2 for postage, but instead they probably made a couple of dollars from the person doing the external advertising. Lost 80% and makes me wonder why I am getting belted again with the Ebay money stick.

I thougth I was 4th in Ebays priorities, 1st is the Shareholders, 2nd being Ebay itself, 3rd are the Buyers and 4tb being the sellers, but I was wrong, the Sellers are 5th behind someone selling the same or similar product on an external site in prices that may not necessarily be in the same currency making my product and Ebay look over priced and greedy.  

Ebay knows of this issue but doesn't seem to care, which is insane as it affects Ebay both directly and indirectly.