Direct to Ebay - Question for Carvers

Many sell pipes directly on their sites. I assume the primary reason why some sell their pipes to places like SP is to gain exposure and build reputation and status (advertising, really), since I agree the retailer takes a cut. Some may sell exclusively through retailers, perhaps because they don't want to deal with the hastle of having their own online store.
In terms of selling on ebay, some do it. Ebay has hefty fees, so I assume you would only do it if (a) you thought you might get more than you could through a direct sale from your site and the excess sale price would more than cover the incremental fees, or (b) you thought you could reach more buyers than through your site (and therefore have an increased chance of a sale you otherwise wouldn't have). On the first point, I note that Trevor Talbert recently started selling some of his special pipes via ebay auction, albeit with a starting price equal to his normal sale price off his site. I believe he tried this after older special Talbert pipes (Halloween pipes I think) fetched ungodly sums of cash in a coopersark ebay auction.

Talbert did give eBay a shot. We'll know whether he was happy with the result when he lists more. The problem for new carvers is that buyers are reluctant to pay top dollar for unknowns. A number of carvers make their names through the promotion of respected dealers and through exposure at pipe shows.

I know a few carvers at the higher end, and they send several pipes a year to major retailers like smokingpipes.com because it keeps their name out there and it gives potential buyers something to look at (even if the pipes are sold, smokingpipes.com keeps the photos on their website). A few pipes make it to their own web site, but the majority of their work are commissions or they have relationships with collectors to whom they'll give the first chance to buy.

I have fairly meh feelings on the ebay thing, based on my experience (It doesn't help that I've hated ebay from long since). I opted to try posting a few pipes on there because I so often get complaints from people that everything is sold off the website by the time they get there - After every site update I can usually expect at least a couple of people to write me in frustration. So, I figured ebay would be a way around that - Put the pipes up for auction where everyone can look at them for a week and let them go to the highest bidder. Overall, though, my experience so far has been that while the pipes sell for higher prices than direct, the ebay "bite" erases that advantage and you just end up having to wait longer to get paid. A simple example - I put up a Christmas pipe that was $640, IIRC, and it eventually sold for $675. Ebay takes $70 of that and Paypal another 3%, so I ended up making less than what I could have sold it for off my own site. It *does* give buyers more of an even chance to get a pipe if they really want it, but I have not thus far found it to be an advantage for me as a seller, and that's not even getting into ebay's horrible reputation for seller treatment and seller protection.
Regarding the percentages, you can't really wholesale to ebay because you still have to do all the sales and marketing and photography work. While the pipes may have arguably more exposure (Which is very debatable, as my email list has gotten pretty large over these past 16 years), it's not actually any easier to get the pipe photographed, posted, written up, handled, measured, etc. The only time wholesaling is workable is when you can turn all that work over to a retailer to do. It's a common misperception some folks have, the old, "Well if you're going to wholesale a pipe, why not sell it to me direct at a discount?" and the simple answer is, all that work would still have to be done then.
As an aside, sometimes it's also completely impossible to wholesale - A lot of the more complex Talbert Briars I make, for instance, I simply can't discount to wholesaler levels. If I'm going to get back my labor hours, I have to sell it direct, because the labor time probably ends up being 90%+ of the pipe's price. OTOH, with pipes like our Ligne Bretagnes, it works out well, because literally half the total working time of the pipe is IN the photos, sales, marketing, and shipping, so I make the same money either way, whether I make it and put it on my own site, or make it and sell a box of them to a retailer.
Re: ebay. I'll probably still put a few pipes on there every so often. It is a good way to give a broader segment of the market a shot at a particular pipe, instead of the pipes so often going to whoever has their phone buzz first when I sent out an update notice. Basically, you try to mix & match your approaches to get the pipes out to as wide a market slice as possible while still keeping the business profitable.
I hope that helped explain a little!