Firstly I love basschat ,
does it affect sales ,prices etc not sure but heres my spin.:-
I have been on here for a while , and have trough basschat upgraded all of my gear , i still check ebay and use it but the main important thing for me on basschat is the fairness of it all.
it really is the closeest thing to being in a democracy that i have been involved with.
i still also use bass related shops the gallery are awesoem and use them for set ups strings and also i will be getting a sei bass made at some piont soon.
Bass gear is another company i recently used and i still think small cumunity based interested sellers (rather than mail order) are a decent way of buying stuff,
i spent half a day at the bass gear shop felt like i was in a living room doing a tradw or sale, i bought a gorgeous pedulla penta buzz for a good fair price , so in this instant i doubt wether i would have sabed much more buying from a guy from basschat.
i know comission must be a killer but i respect the decent shops for providing a great service and would buy more often if i had the money from them , basschat is so fair that it makes perferct sense for it to be so big!
my only personal down side of bass chat is the gas it gives me .... but im happy to say that i am actually extremely happy with my gear now and just look!!!! (untill another sei or something nice comes along)
Regards
ziggy.