I still go to ebay to buy things that I can't buy locally or for a reasonable price at an online or local retailer. High margin items like the expensive perfume I bought for my fiance tend to sell for WAY less on eBay.
eBay is also the ideal place to sell something when you have no idea what its true market value is. I had a space saver spare with a 9/72 date stamp which came out of a rusty Euro '73 plastic-tank 911E I had parted out. That's gold to someone who wants a correct dated spare wheel for restoring a '73 RS. But how do I price it? You never see these for sale. I would have asked for $100 on Pelican (twice the rate of any other date stamped space saver), but got $250 on eBay!
Basically, eBay is the place to get a true market value for something you need out of your possession soon or if you don't know its value. Searching completed auctions is a great way to find out the true market value for just about anything, including cars.
Have to agree with you regarding Ebay's interface and fees and the way they run auctions. Why don't they offer an option to extend bidding past the end time until 5 minutes has passed without additional bids? That's the way a real auction should work! I'd pay extra for that feature when listing...sniping kills all of the momentum you're supposed to get by auctioning. It's bad for buyers too...it really makes people mad to lose a bid by a penny which actually happened to me!
A lot of people use eBay as an advertising tool more than a true auction house due to the tremendous public exposure, but I hope Ebay maintains its place as the world's biggest flea market.
