I have a good friend who has left eBay because they now require PayPal as a payment method. I think he is crazy for selling over 5000 items on eBay to date without PayPal, but he has left since they told him he must accept PayPal.

The new eBay concepts suck. The new auction listing pages which are already gone, the feedback system making buyers attack sellers by telling lies (Yes lies - eBay requires buyers to click a box before leaving neutral or negative feedback stating that you attempted to contact the seller - Twice in the last month a buyer clicked this button without contacting me first - That is lying, right?) and their new My eBay page is impossible.

Why make changes to something that has worked so well for so long?

I have no clue, but they think change will make good.

I sell a lot of electronics on Amazon.com but otherwise for collectibles - eBay is still king but slipping fast.

Joel - I agree with you 100% - well said!

I seem to remember eBay said in a statemetn not long ago that their goal was to keep the current customers and were not believing they could expand their customer base anymore (I could be off on that one thought.) But it's a recipe for disaster when a business stops trying to grow and only concentrates on stopping the bleeding.

From what I understand eBay isn't forcing people to accept ONLY Paypal, but is forcing the sellers to at least accept it as an option. Is that correct?