In a Bloomberg TV interview aired on Independence day (Sounds a bit like Freedom!) Meg Whitman revealed that eBay may eventually use Google Checkout if more people are satisfied with the service!
Checkout aficionados shouldn’t take too much hope of that being any time soon however. The comment was made while discussing a recent survey which found only 14 percent of Google Checkout users happy with it. Saying it may be allowed on eBay if user satisfaction increases sounds more like a dig at Checkout than a forward looking statement.
Meg points out the figure for PayPal users happy with the service was over double that of Checkout. PayPal has also increased it’s lead over Checkout since Christmas sales and Meg likened it to “a huge home run,” saying “It’s the most innovative Web payment product out there and has done really well, even in the face of a little bit of a challenge from Google.”
So what should we make of her comment that eBay may use Checkout? I think the operative word is *may*. I’m pretty sure eBay have no compelling reason to allow it, in fact it only benefits sellers and will certainly cost PayPal revenue. For buyers eBay and PayPal are synonymous and very few that open an eBay account don’t go on to open a PayPal account (at least in established territories). Don’t expect Checkout on eBay this year.
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Fat Chance. Ebay owns Paypal, and isn’t likely to give up it’s checkout monopoly. (They make an additional 7% on every sale…..) They bought out Bidpay a few years ago, which was actually a much better service. And don’t even get me started about the unfair and illegal business practices Paypal uses…..
For the record, the above is incorrect: Bidpay is *not* owned by eBay/Paypal.
PayPal is growing much faster off-ebay (merchant services) than on-ebay. In fact, this yeat we will see merhcant services TPV surpass on-ebay TPV. This is fantastic news for everyone as it opens up an incredible opportunity for eBay. Not everybody will agree with this but I think Meg will spin-off PayPal as an independent company in 2008.
As an independent company, PayPal will be able to target all mass retailers without any conflict of interests (think Amazon). And as an independent auction house, eBay will be able to be more accomodating to new payment methods such as GC.
I found it very interesting that in the interview above, Meg already started giving PayPal a market value. She said it accounts for $15 to $20 billion of eBay’s market cap. As you know, eBay’s market cap is $45 billlion.
One final (and perhaps insignificant) point is that eBay has changed their slogan. They are no longer saying “the power of three” under which it would be hard to justify a spin-off.
btw, at the moment, the whole interview can be seen here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/index.html?Intro=intro3
Well Gee, Quick Everbody, Buy Stock!!!
Since, Paypal already has their hands in your pockets….
and Pray Really Hard that the Economy Holds Out…..
For More About Paypal’s Business Practices visit: https://www.paypalwarning.com/
For More About Paypal’s real Business Practices visit:
https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/ua/EUUA-outside
And in fact seeing as they changed at the begining of this week (For Europe) if you haven’t visited the above link (whether you’re a buyer or a seller) you really really should! 😉
1. According to PayPal accepting their ToS (Terms of Service) in effect means you waive your rights to credit card consumer protection laws if you want to use their service, and that you may not issue a chargeback for unauthorized use of your credit card and PayPal account, or if you do, then they have the right to limit your account. Is this legal? We don’t know. But it’s how Paypal operates. See my credit card waiver page for more information.
2. Their customer service is horrible. They used to hide their telephone number, (intentionally – by their own admission) and only provided support via “form” emails:
“As for the customer service, Sollitto said they intentionally make the phone number very difficult to find in order to save costs.”
This is confirmed in the book “PayPal Wars”. If you have a problem, you are at their mercy! (And you will eventually have a problem.) The only reason their number can be found now is because they were forced to by law (EFTA Electronic Funds Transaction Act) due to complaints from users of this website. You can also click on our FAQs page. Just scroll down a bit, and you’ll find their phone numbers, plus their toll free numbers as well, plus a huge list of unpublished PayPal phone numbers.
3. Their terms of service are not completely disclosed upon signup and some key “conditions” are not disclosed. They fail to mention their total lack of security to prevent your account from being compromised by phishing & spoof sites. That if your account is accessed by a criminal using one of these methods, PayPal will hold YOU monetarily & legally responsible! Also, no place do they openly tell potential members that their money is 100% at risk. That PayPal can, will, and has in the past, completely cleaned out customers’ accounts, (including your checking or savings account) with no appeals process available. Instead they bury in the fine print of 37 pages of their “Terms of Service” (ToS) where they disclose to you that PayPal can close your account for any reason what-so-ever, or no reason, and then you have to wait 180 days to get your money. Think that’ll never happen? Think again. That’s what everyone thinks till it happens to them.
4. If PayPal feels your actions are questionable, PayPal is the investigator, judge, jury and executioner. “Telling your side” of what happened, in most cases seems to be irrelevant. They also refuse to provide you with the details of their investigation and withhold documents they relied upon to make their decisions. Your only contact will be an email that says:
Thank you for contacting PayPal. We apologize for the delay in respondingto your service request.
After review, the decision has been made to keep your account locked. This decision cannot be appealed.
If you have any further questions, please reply to this email.
That will be the end of it as far as PayPal is concerned. You can email back, but you’ll just get more of the same. Oh yea, and you’ll have to wait 180 days to get your money.
5. If you are a bona fide, up-standing individual with hundreds of successful transactions, but someone pays you with a stolen credit card, your account (by PayPal’s own admission) is immediately flagged as being “criminal behavior” and any money in that account is confiscated. If a customer “disputes” the charge, same thing happens. (See email above.) PayPal claims that they will fight chargebacks, but read this before you fall for that one.
6. Paypal’s fees for NON-credit card funding are the same as for credit cards! This is the single biggest rippoff on their site. We understand Paypal charging a fee when you fund your account with a credit card. After all, they are being charged by Visa/Mastercard, etc. And we understand there is a lot of fraud with credit card funding. However, most of the money sent within the Paypal system no longer comes from credit card funding. However, money spent from PayPal account to PayPal account is subject to the exact same fees credit card purchases are! This money has been in the system for years and is “clean.” That is, there are no fees at all to Paypal, and there is almost no fraud at all with this money, but Paypal charges the SAME fees to transactions with NON-credit card funds! Thus every transaction makes PayPal money, but it’s nothing more than an entry in a computer database on their system. No money has actually moved, and there are no costs to Paypal. They are just skimming the gravy.
The user agreement shows many of your statements to be incorrect. Also clicking “Contact Us” at the bottom of any PayPal page brings up email and telephone contact details. I believe the accepted way to display contact details on a website is via the “Contact us” page!
“They are just skimming the gravy.”
No, they’re making a profit. That’s what businesses do.
If and when GC is ‘allowed’ the BIG winners will be ChannleAdvisor/MarketWorks/other checkout users as it can easily be integrated into checkout.
Maybe its time to ‘conceive’ a basic non inventory management checkout service ‘in anticipation of’ ?
I am going to stand up for PayPal, something which I never though that I would do. I think that PayPal is a good service for the following reasons (addmitedly I have never been on the sharp end of a chargeback).
1. I allows small busiensses and individuals to accept credit cards without the need for a merchant account
2. It is hugely convenient. The integration with eBay really smooths the process of eBay transactions
3. It is obviously expensive compared with a cheque or a bank transfer, but it is competively priced compared with other forms of online payment (e.g. Worldpay).
4. It provides a level of protection and an arbitration process to buyers and sellers.
I think that the positives outweigh the negatives.
Regarding google Checkout, I think that it too is a great service, but the lack of integration with the eBay will make it less attractive to buyers. Large volume sellers can already use it for their sales if they use a product like channel advisor which has a third party checkout
Quote : Large volume sellers can already use it for their sales if they use a product like channel advisor which has a third party checkout
Not if it is an eBay sale, GC is ‘supposed’ to be blocked as a Checkout Payment Option IF the sale is an eBay purchase ?
i sell stuff on ebay £3000 a month i love google checkout coz it savesme lot of money.as karen said earlier paypal suck 7% of sales into their pocket.
i hate paypal thye still owe me £580
I know many people recently who’ve been scammed by people creating google-checkout accounts in their name but with a different bank account and ripping many people off (usually by eBay)
Google-checkout is far too new and easy to fraud, i’d stear well clear of it.