Spreading the word about Hobby-Bid

I took a look at it. Looks like the Sci-Fi genre is well repreented there but not much else.

I agree that eBay could use some competition, but it'll never happen, IMO, on the level that eBay does. It's too big. The best you can do is address eBay and try to get them to change their policies, IMO.

I bookmarked it for future reference, but it's pretty slim pickin's...  So far, I've never been burned on Ebay though, either as a buyer or a seller (I don't sell kits though, I sell militaria to finance my kit-buying)...

 In fact, if the winning bidder don't pay me, they don't get the stuff, and I just re-list it...  I didn't have any issue with Ebay doin' the "PayPal only" thing either, as that was the only way I ever accepted payment anyway... Buying kits on Ebay, well... I'm not necessarily looking for a kit that retails for 50.00 bucks and grabbing it for 10.00, but rather finding the kits that are no longer in production, like many of the Monogram and Revell kits from the 60's, 70's, & 80's and the 70's/80's Tamiya & Testor's/Italeri kits. 

When I first started using eBay in the fall of 1996 (I remember returning from staff school at Ft. Leavenworth in Nov, right after Halloween), it was slim pickings as well. I looked at every single model kit up for auction, and it took less than an hour.

My first purchase was the original Tamiya M1 that I kitbashed with the later Tamiya M1A1 to make an accurate (accurate enough for me) M1IP. Still have that kit buried in a box somewhere.

Bottom line is if you get the word out and enough model builders try it, then it may succeed. One of the benefits to eBay though is that they become the "merchant of record" for purchases made thru Pay Pal. If you don't get your merchandise, they go after the seller for the money.