I agree that knowledge of the site is an issue but as I've said here and on obay, as obay's search engine gets worse, making it increasingly difficult for buyers to find what they want, most of my buyers have made their first purchase on ebid from me. Presumably coming here through google shopping or they are looking at alternative sites.
But I disagree with you about the idea of automatic FB added by the site for two reasons. Firstly, FB has always been voluntary on every site I've looked at and I don't think that should change. Partly for the second reason.
Before I listed anything on Ebid I read some of the independent reviews I could find. Some were quite uncomplementary, even going so far as to say that Charity Auctions (YDC) were a way for sellers to inflate their FB scores.
Now that we know for sure that some obay employees will commit illegal acts to silence criticism, I don't doubt that they would have any scruples about planting hostile reviews. It makes me wonder how "independent" some of ebids poor reviews were.
For Ebid to be the only site to automatically award FB to its own sellers would be all too easy to use as another stick to beat ebid with by implying that it's doing something devious. IMO a Transaction Counter (already used by the Craft & Vintage site) would show an accurate number of transactions successfully completed, without blurring or diluting the FB left by buyers.
I do think that the perception of paypal (and obay)) have changed since they split-up. Previously their pretty much seamless operation made buying and selling an easy, even pleasurable experience. That's been far from the truth recently. Paypal blundered with its arm-twisting to get people to use mobiles, freezing accounts and balances and the increasing number of Charge-Backs (the £12 fee mentioned above). I'm not going to bother with details about obay, anyone who still uses the site knows what an absolutely horrendous site its become.
With public disenchantment with both sites probably at an all time high, there hasn't been a better time for Ebid to make changes, offering more integrated payment options and giving buyers more confidence in sellers can only be beneficial IMO.
PS. Is it just me? My spell-check seems to have stopped working??