When changes happen at eBay, Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY), it's usually sellers who become angry at, well, anything. From fee changes to feedback changes to anything that affects their business, eBay sellers can be a finicky lot. And, that discontent doesn't stew -- that "vocal majority" definitely lets those opinions be heard.

Again, many eBay sellers are becoming hostile in the wake of recent selling fee changes implemented just as new CEO John Donahoe steps into his role. Donahoe surprised sellers when he cut some seller fees, but then raised others. While Donahoe argued that the deletion of "flat fees" for sold items with a "minimal fee" will lower the risk to eBay sellers, many disputed this argument, and some even threatened to "strike." Seeing as though eBay sellers aren't employees, that made me laugh a little. "Taking a week off" would be more appropriate, but you get the picture.

But, if some angry sellers do "strike" for a week, eBay's coffers will notice the revenue difference. This is a prime opportunity for a company like Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) to really punch up its auction business and really begin to recruit former eBay sellers to an alternative auction platform in the wake of so many disappointments in the last 18 months. That, or just go ahead and buy eBay already.

In one of the largest customer-oriented changes I've seen on eBay, Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) in quite some time, the world's largest online auction house will no longer allow negative or neutral "customer feedback" ratings to be left by auction sellers on the accounts of auction buyers.

The thinking goes like this: a buyer may be afraid of leaving negative feedback on an auction for fear of the seller retaliating by leaving negative feedback themselves.

Imagine this: you purchase an item from an eBay seller and that package arrives with a product significantly different than what was advertised. You fulfilled your end of the bargain; the seller has not. If you leave negative feedback for the transaction, the seller may come back at you with an inappropriate feedback rating. Thus, both parties may not leave feedback at all -- and that's not what builds trust in the eBay community, right?

The changes won't happen until this coming May, and current feedback ratings for both buyers and sellers will be based on a 12-month rolling average instead of a "lifetime" rating, which seems more appropriate. Perhaps changes like these -- which seem to come as a response to customer demand -- will help stem the tide of nastiness some eBay customers have had recently about the auction company.

EBay, Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) users can be a frugal lot -- and they're used to saving a bundle as they buy things through the site. In fact, new and independent research shows that eBay buyers save billions of dollars each year using the world's largest online auction site.

The research from the University of Maryland states that eBay buyers saved $7 billion compared to the amount the group was willing to pay for the items they ended up winning. So, if an eBay buyer was willing to pay $100 for a home appliance and he or she won the bid for $65, that's a "savings" of $35 from the buyer's perspective.

The data was from buyer purchases in 2003, which is somewhat dated in my opinion. But the researchers applied the same measurement methodology to 2004 eBay buyer data and found a "savings" of $8.4 billion. Applying the logic to 2007 data, buyers "saved" in the arena of $19 billion last year. This "consumer surplus" calculation would make one think eBay will never fade if buyers are facing billions and billions in "savings" every year using the auction site -- regardless of how some sellers feel.

Although eBay, Inc.'s (NASDAQ: EBAY) Skype internet telephone service has has quite a bit of bad press lately, the service is what I would call indispensable to millions of customers who use it every day (myself included). There are reportedly over 250 million registered users of the service, and I regularly see seven to 10 million customers online at any given time. Why, then, isn't the company doing well for eBay?

It is, in all reality. The fact is that eBay overpaid handsomely for the company in the first place, which is now showing up as ROI pressure just a tad over two years after eBay gobbled up the service. So, what can help Skype prove its worth more than just offering Voice-over-IP (VoIP) telephone calling over all those millions of PCs? Try voice calling over mobile handsets.