eBay Australia have for the second time delayed implementation of the PayPal only policy, but this time a little more permanently
On the 21st May Australian users became obliged to offer PayPal on all listings, and it was planned that eBay Australia would go PayPal only on the 17th June. This was then delayed until July 15th but now pending the outcome of the ACCC decision .
eBay apologise to users for the change saying it “regrets any ongoing uncertainty that this further delay may cause” and that “eBay appreciates the feedback received from the Community and will use this input to consider where we can make improvements that benefit both buyers and sellers.”
In what sounds like a sea change they also say they are “committed to improving safety and we will continue to look for ways to improve the shopping experience for buyers which will subsequently benefit both sellers and eBay”
This looks like a smart move by eBay, rather than again push the date back in the face of a probably negative decision by the ACCC, cancelling PayPal only plans for eBay Australia now will avoid being forced to if the ACCC decision is against them. If they do have a surprise win they can easily resurrect the policy.
It’s time to move on, and to look at new ways to increase security on the site. A great improvement would be to introduce new checkout features like the ability for merchants to offer alternative payments in the checkout flow enabling eBay to verify that the buyer has paid. That’s one change that would definitely appeal to sellers who have been calling for choice.
14 Responses
I can’t see how this could have gone worse for eBay (and I say that as someone with a reasonable amount of sympathy for the policy).
They have weathered the negative publicity, pissed off the sellers, prompted an exodus to Oztion and still not got what they wanted.
I’m very surprised that eBay didn’t get the correct legal advice here before announcing (or perhaps they did and took a calculated gamble).
I’m still surprised they didn’t try it somewhere else first like the UK where we have 95% of payments made with PayPal anyway.
I guess the negative publicity could possibly have been worse though in comparison to the possible benefit of success – not so much to win and a lot more to lose.
Personally I’m still very tempted to go PayPal only at some point in the near future – cheques/POs are just an annoyance to process.
Smacks of ‘white hat’ mentality to me – the perception that whatever they want to do is right because they are ‘the good guys’. The US administration have been criticised for this in the past (particularly by the USSR during the Cuban missile crisis) & I think a lot of US corporations have demonstrated a similar psychology.
I’m delighted that Ebay has backed down on this ridiculous policy. Forcing Australian buyers and sellers to only accept and pay by a payment method that is full of bugs, glitches, faults and every other problem was going to be a nightmare. And I haven’t even started talking about Paypal disputes and chargebacks.
Now if Ebay can just bring back the buyers and sellers who left because of this ill-conceived plan, maybe they will be able to stop the rot. I hope.
eBay got their corporate backside well and truly kicked. 😆 😈
A perfect lesson in how not to do something, I should be amazed that such a large company screwed up so badly, but being eBay screwing things up seems to be second nature.
How much damage ebay did to their user base long term we can only guess at.
Ebay haven’t backed down, just postponed. Again. They don’t care about the sellers rights or the protection of buyers. And if recent rumours from an apparent “insider” are anything to go by, this is all part of their plan to get rid of the small and medium sized sellers. We’re not wanted there aymore. Hopefully ebay will be knocked in the head and have some sense knocked into them. Where’s the thanks we sellers and buyers get for lining their pockets all these years? A swift kick in our backsides as they sweep us out the door? Yeah, thanks FeeBay/GreedBay. 👿
It’s a case of Who Do They Think They Are ?
Paypal’s not a bank
Ebay’s just one of numerous online venues
So who do they think they are, dictating to supposedly 5 million members that they * will * (like it or not) use Paypal and *will* tolerate waits of up to 21 days for payment and *will* submit to having money pulled from their account without their knowledge or permission and *will* cop it sweet if Paypal decides to freeze their account for up to 180 days and/or send debt-collectors around to their home !
People are comparing ebay-Paypal’s punch-drunk approach to third-world dictatorships and rightly so !
And this from a company that pays NO taxes in this country ?
Arrogant, ignorant swine.
Oh and this…
“eBay appreciates the feedback received from the Community and will use this input to consider where we can make improvements that benefit both buyers and sellers.â€
😆 Yeah right! They have obviously forgotten about their very own Community boards existing. Well… except for the posts on them that keep mysteriously disappearing. 😉
JSR: Exactly right, I commented on the RT board, That we are the community and ebay never listened to our feedback at all.
All they did is send you a slap for standing up for your rights.
Threads keep disappearing and strange listings are appearing.
A bit of padding in listings going on there EBAY
Is this for your Stock Holders
You can only be amazed at ebay’s colossal poor judgement and complete lack of understanding of a foreign culture that they tried to force this through in AUSTRALIA !!!! for heaven’s sake.
Bad news for ebay but great news for …. er, just about everyone else. 😆
Exactly, Seadog.
Ebay not only pads its listings .. it rigs its own Community Boards with Ebay tools who peddle the party line in addition to maliciously ‘reporting’ not only criticism of ebay but also anyone against whom the Tools have a personal grudge.
Ebay’s oxymoronically named ‘ Moderators’ play hand in glove with the Tools and ban (a polite term for ‘silence’ ) with extreme bias, allowing Ebay’s Tools to strut the boards, bullying and provoking at will, in packs. And this has been the case since I first encountered the bully-mentality in Ebay’s boards, years ago.
The ebay Tools are ebay’s Hitmen/women. Drunk with power. Silencing people and valid criticism as the mood takes them, all condoned and assisted by behind the scenes ebay-thug ‘Moderators’.
Ebay plays a dirty game, all the way through.
It has no respect for anyone or anything.
Nor has it earned respect.
Noosa Sunset, funny you should mention that. I am curently on a thread on the RT about listing padding at the moment. I’ve posted a link to someone who has (I think) 105 listings for vintage clothing with:
“FULL DESCRIPTION ,pictures& MEASUREMENTS
(& PRICE) WILL BE UPLOADED BY 11AM friday AEST.
Please dont bid until then”
…on a majority of them, if not all. The users excuse was that they are new (March this year) and that they perhaps shouldn’t have listed so many. Yet the seller relisted 45-50 of them in under half an hour (with a current total of 114 listings), still without a description of the item, photos or even what size the items are.
Wondering how long before I get a slap, that board disappears or both.
Ah, but they’ve now put a rule into place that says you’re not allowed to say you prefer direct deposit or money order or, basically, anything except PayPal. You can say you prefer that, of course. And listings are getting pulled down all over the place, as a result, mostly from people who had a pre-created listing template that stated their payment preference.
So eBay appear to have decided that they probably aren’t going to be allowed to restrict payment options legally, but they can make it so difficult to use other options that everyone kind of defaults to PayPal.
Chris, we’ve discussed this issue in our office and it has been suggested that they chose Australia as a testing ground because our Trades Practices Act may be the closest (in terms on content and application) to the FTC’s comparable legislation in the USA… They could therefore use this as an effective ‘practice run’ and learning experience for an attempt to do the same in the US, with a smaller market to lose share from. Maybe we’re just cynical in here…
It is rather odd regardless to try this in a country where internet banking is so widely used as well as being free, effective and largely safe.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports on this issue in their article eBay Defies ACCC (link is to our blog with that article – https://thegh6vine.blogspot.com/2008/06/ebay-defies-accc-on-paypal.html)