Thanks to everyone sharing their perspective on ebay. I joined in 1999, but have never sold anything (always on the buyer's end of the transaction). I have also never signed-up for paypal. I tried once, but experienced so much hassle, that once I figured out how to "unsign up" I swore I would never have a paypal account.

Here lately I've been thinking of getting signed up as a seller. I recently waded through all of their FAQs and so forth, to figure out how much it was going to cost me to sell. I was blown away by the fees and the fact that they can charge your account even before an item sells! After that I didn't get far enough into the fine print, but I'm assuming I'd NEED to have a paypal account to be able to sell on ebay?

But while ebay carries a TON of overhead and the potential to be a royal PITA, it does provide access to a much larger market than craigslist (which is very local in nature) or various internet forums (where everyone in the target audience is either an "expert", wants something for nothing, or a combination of the two).

I tried looking for other on-line auction sites comparable to ebay, but truth is, THERE ARE NONE. Yes, I have found other sites with low (or no) fees, but there just seems to be little to no activity on these sites, and not nearly the variety of items available on ebay.

So, while ebay isn't perfect (by any stretch of the imagination), it seems to have a bit of a monopoly as THE on-line resource for connecting buyers and sellers for just about anything imaginable.

-murph