As Alan pointed out, you can't 'compete' on Ebay with flies. The customer cant' 'see' or handle the fly there, and so they have no clue as to the quality of the flies. You can't get custom colors, choose sizes, or get flies that aren't known standards. Just because they are for sale, doesn't mean they are well tied.

Luckily, for some fly fishermen, flies from Ebay are not an option. There are lots of fly fishermen out there that prefer to have custom tied flies that suit their waters, fishing styles, personal preferences, etc. A comercial fly tyer who caters to this market can make some money doing so.

For many shops, 'local' patterns far outsell the mass market flies. It's pretty common for a traveling fly fisherman to walk into a shop, strike up a conversation about the local waters, try to get some information on what's working where. If the shop owner shows some local favorite patterns, the traveling angler will often buy a few, either to fish with or just to spend a bit of money supporting the shop. You won't find many of these flies in catalogs or on Ebay. A commercial fly tyer who has a few shops that need such flies can make money filling that need.

There are women tying flies in s/e asia that can tie faster and better than the vast majority of fly tyers who also fish. If you tied several hundred identical flies every day for several years, you'd get good at it too (the first fifty thousand of a particualr pattern are the hard ones, after that it's just practice). We can't compete with them on a cost per fly basis, simply because they are faster and can live on much less income than we can. Umpqua gets their materials at about 1/50 of what we have to pay at normal 'wholesale', due to the economies of scale involved (if you need sixty thousand grizzly saddles they are quite a bit cheaper than buying five of them). So you don't try to compete selling mass market Adams and Gold Ribbed Hares Ears.

You find a niche, fill it, and expand your business through satisfied customers and word of mouth. Still works. It does take hard work and dedication, just like ANY successful endeavor.

Buddy