Shares of the online auction site eBay, Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) have been surging today after positive remarks from Banc of America Securities analyst Brian J. Pitz, who stated that the company is on track for a "solid" first quarter to the year.

Pitz made his remarks after analyzing the company's recent proprietary listings and conversion rate tracking data. As a result of his findings, Pitz gives the stock a price target of $38, and lifted his revenue forecast for the quarter from $2.03 billion up to $2.08 billion. This is slightly higher than the $2.06 billion that Wall Street is expecting to see, and as a result shares of the e-commerce giant have surged 5% today to $30.96, and hit a high earlier in the session up at $31.21.

eBay has been in the news a lot lately, but for the most part, it has not been positive. The company has been fighting off speculation that a seller's strike late last month that extended into the first week of March had had any material impact on the site's listing numbers. Some have argued that the strike led to a 13% drop in product listings, but eBay has adamantly denied any impact what-so-ever, and instead has insisted that a promotion that ran right before the strike had artificially inflated product listing numbers that were used to compute the strike's effectiveness.

If nothing else... eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) users are a feisty bunch. After just coming off a multi-week sellers strike, they are already planning their next revolt, tentatively set to launch May 1.

The most recent strike was orchestrated in reaction to recent changes made on the site and lasted from the week of Feb. 18 through last night. While eBay is steadfast that the recent site boycott had no effect on its business, not everyone is buying that, and are anticipating hitting the site again come May.

Some statistics have shown that eBay witnessed a 13% drop in its online listings, but eBay denies any impact. The site claims that the statistics out there are not taking into account a 20-cent listings promotion that it had launched just prior to the boycott that temporarily inflated its auction listings.

These are definitely some interesting times for e-commerce mega site eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY). In the past few weeks, the site has been under attack from some of its sellers who have launched a strike against the site in response to recent changes. While eBay denies any impact from the strike, there are some out there who just aren't buying it.

At the root of the current situation are changes made by eBay over the past month that have left its users frustrated to say the least. The core reason for the frustration relates to eBay's decision to lower its listing fees but at the same time raise its final sale fees. This is being seen as a direct slap in the face to the site's more successful sellers. Also adding to the current resentment is the decision to hold certain PayPal payments by up to 21 days in an effort to fight fraudulent activity on the site. As if those two things were not enough, the site went forward in changing its practice of allowing sellers to leave negative feedback on buyers.

As you can imagine, sellers were not happy and launched a sellers' strike that they hoped would convince the company to roll back their changes. Depending on who you listen to, the strike has either had a significant impact on auction listings, or no effect whatsoever.