[Runscott]

Okay, I've looked. It all makes sense.

Ebay is looking for a steady, predictable revenue flow (monthly contracts) and everything else is gravy (but they also love gravy). With this in mind, they make it as pleasant as possible for people to pay them monthly fees....like $15,95, $49.95, or $299.95 to have an ebay store. The $299.95 fee makes it super-appealing for sellers to list thousands of overpriced items, even if they rarely sell much of anything. Notice also that most of the over-priced store items do NOT have the 'make an offer' button. There's a good reason for this.

Example: let's say you have a caramel card with a value of $1,000 listed at $2,000. Someone wants it, so they contact you and ask if you'd take $1,300. You say, "Yes, but only if you buy it through my non-ebay website". They go to your website, send you $1,300, no ebay fees are incurred, and you just made enough to completely cover your store fees for the entire month. Your insertion fee was 3 cents and even if you sold the item through ebay, your end-value fees were the same as for any other sale.