eBay is in talks with Alibaba to get PayPal offered as a payment option on the new AliExpress wholesale marketplace, according to rumours appearing in the WSJ.
The two companies have long been rivals, but an alliance could now make sense. Insiders say that merchants, particularly in the US, are unhappy with using Alibaba’s own payment system Alipay, and are demanding the facility to use PayPal. For PayPal, Alibaba could offer the potential for huge expansion in the Chinese market.
Alibaba’s PR department has said that the company will decide whether to adopt other payment tools based on user demands. Merchants outside China are likely to favour PayPal over many alternatives: Alipay is unfamiliar, and bank transfers to China are expensive and the costs are borne by buyers. PayPal, on the other hand, offers the cashflow-speeding possibility of spending your earnings directly on new stock, something that newer and smaller traders value intensely.
7 Responses
I purchased from firms on Alibaba in the past and always found the goods were fake. There are far too many of these companies on the site which need to be removed from the site to make the name “alibaba” reputable.
goods included, trainers, hair straighteners, golf clubs, tennis racquets and brand name clothing.
This sums up Ebay completely they are doing deals with crooks its called cutting out the middle crook. Alibaba is awash with fakes just look how many Beatles remastered cd box sets they sell. You can order as many as you like. Who would have thought EMI has so much manufacturing capacity in mainland China? Don’t like the price of Lady Gaga headphones? then order them from Alibaba and you decide the price. Many of these fakes end up on Ebay and there is no telling if they are fake until they arrive. But still even if there is no such product ie a bootleg Ebay doesn’t mind eg if you sell bootleg Madonna Hard Candy picture discs on their site, next to legitimate dealers trying to sell the offical coloured vinyl release they won’t bat an eyelid especially if you are a “Top Rated Seller” and funnily enough they don’t pay a blind bit of notice if you tell them. Thats why they will NEVER be as good as Amazon
If using Paypal on alibaba brings a little more protection when buying then that’s a good thing.
Er my business didn’t fail its never done better since I moved it off Ebay thanks very much. As stated the problem is the number of fakes and people like you whose attitude to people breaking the law is whatever but if your business is doing well and you don’t mind fakes being sold on Ebay then very good for you bigpoppa. Please tell us what you sell and how many fakes there are in your category. In the meantime I will continue to post on the topic until Ebay clean up its act.