Every entrepreneur eventually learns that earning all of your income from one source can be a dangerous thing.

A lot of people who engage in reselling have come to depend on eBay for their entire incomes, or for their extra income if they are reselling part time.

When one site is relied on too much, it can be devastating to a home business when the rates are raised, as eBay does so regularly.

Here are four reasons why you shouldn't discount the smaller eBay alternatives:

1) You can pick up regular customers on smaller sites who will be loyal to you because of the smaller number of sellers who sell the items that you do.

Making sales to regular customers is a lot easier than finding new ones, so cultivating as many new regulars as possible can be extremely profitable.

2) You can tap new markets by appealing to people who have left eBay because of their dissatisfaction with the site.

Some buyers have left the site- particularly those who didn't like using PayPal once checks and money orders became against the rules.

The buyers who left have found an alternative to eBay. If you want their business, you have to be on those other sites.

3) If you are reselling, you can run into resellers selling the exact same things on eBay- sometimes dozens of them.

By branching out onto smaller sites, you can avoid a great deal of that competition.

4) If your profit margin is fairly slim, another rate hike on eBay may mean little or no profit for your home business.

If you have listings on other sites that charge less, you have those listings to fall back on if a new rate hike threatens your profits.

Having listings on more than one site also provides something that no one site can provide- peace of mind.

If all of your sales come from just one place, you may always have the worry in the back of your mind about the site going down, site updates disrupting your listings, price increases and even feedback sabotage by a disgruntled buyer.

If you have spread out across the Internet, that will be one less thing that you have to worry about.

What are you waiting for, get out there now and start checking out some of the eBay alternatives that are free, have more targeted customer groups and are available to you now.

You will not only be boosting your profits tenfold you will also be protecting yourself from future changes on eBay and potential listing hijack by competitors.

Now that's one huge reason to try out an eBay alternative.