January 8, 2010 | The recession has led to a number of new, smaller websites to grow that are providing similar — in many cases a better — service than the giant who invented online sales. Some of these sites have coined the term re-commerce, re-selling items that would normally just sit around. Several new sites, like Gazelle and Glyde have joined a group of established, growing sites. Etsy, had $21.9 million in sales last month; and Bonanzle that has reached almost 1 million unique visitors a month. Along with this growth from users, eBay has seen a decrease in its unique visits. This is a distinct sign and the original online marketplace has taken numerous steps to improve the user experience like allowing 3rd party applications from companies like UPS. These new innovative organizations like Gazelle, being run by former eBay executives, are too versatile and quick for eBay to keep up with. Gazelle has implemented a strategy to pay users for the product before it even sells. After a consumer agrees to sell a product, the seller is given a free shipping label or packaging to mail it to the company's fulfillment center in Boston. Products are then photographed and listed in marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon, sold to wholesalers for export globally, or recycled. This is something that will be extremely attractive to users, and something that I doubt eBay will even attempt to implement any time in the near future. Although, Amazon.com has began to implement a gift card system for user that is similar to Gazelle.com. So what does this mean? This is inevitable progression of business. As time goes on any marketplace or industry will become filled with competition, most of which fail behind the industry leader. The only problem with this situation is that in this case new ideas do seem to be more innovative and are at this point out-maneuvering the giant.