eBay Germany to change payment methods

From early summer a new payment process will be introduced which will change the way sellers are paid for sales on eBay Germany. With the new payment process, buyers will pay eBay, and eBay will pay sellers. The new payment process replaces the way payments are currently being made on eBay completely.

Sellers will no longer be able to offer the “See item description” and “Escrow” payment methods on eBay.de and eBay.at in most categories. This is in preparation for the introduction of the new payment process. Good Til Cancelled listings will be updated automatically on renewal. Most business sellers will receive their money one day after they have shipped the item and marked as shipped. The payout period will depend on the particular sales history and the service status from the seller.

Whilst these payment changes don’t affect the UK (although it may be the shape of things to come in the future), if you list directly on the German eBay sites then you’ll need to comply with them. If you list on eBay UK with International shipping options rather then directly onto eBay Germany then you can continue to list as normal.

I’m pretty sure that sellers will have a lot to say about this change, sellers generally like to be in control of their own business and to be paid directly but in truth if eBay control the payment process then it gives them much greater insight into the transaction. Seller protection from chargebacks, removal of unfair feedback and simply the knowledge of how long it takes a buyer to make cleared payment all become transparent. It also enables eBay to offer better buyer protection.

If I was designing eBay from scratch today I’d design a marketplace with a built in payment process. When eBay was first launched this is the one area that Pierre missed when he first built eBay 15 years ago and the biggest mistake he made.

Payments are an advantage that Amazon have long enjoyed – if you open an Amazon account you’re automatically set up for Amazon payments. If eBay can migrate to the same – if you open an eBay account you’re automatically set up for eBay payments – then there’s a good chance there’ll be a big decrease in unpaid items, eBay will be responsible for chasing in the money and can take stronger actions against buyers who fail to pay.

This will be an interesting one to watch and if it proves successful (and eBay have been testing the payments pilot for new German sellers since September 2011) it will in all likelihood be introduced to more countries in the future.