A lot of interest has been stirred up by the circulation of an eBay survey asking sellers for their views on several issues affecting them.

The survey tackles a wide range of issues, ranging from international trading, to the 'Best Match' results returned when a buyer searches for a particular product, and the fees sellers pay.

But the general direction of many of the questions has led several traders to believe that eBay may be considering changing its fees model to one based on pay-per-click (PPC).

This structure, common throughout the e-commerce sector, means that merchants are charged for every potential customer who clicks on a link to their website or product.

And early feedback about this possibility was positive, with one seller commenting: "This would give some control back to the seller if it were implemented correctly. But if eBay continued to let the diamond sellers bigfoot everybody else for free, it would be no different from the current situation."

Commenting on her blog, Ina Steiner, editor of EcommerceBytes.com, said the survey appeared to have divided eBay merchants, with some welcoming the chance to pay a premium for a guaranteed high position in the product listings.

Others though, said such reports caused alarm among sellers, one asking why the 'Best Match' feature had been introduced in the first place, and another saying the suggestion that eBay might adopt a PPC model for seller fees was "absurd and alarming".