You might have seen a new feature on eBay UK over the past few days. As you can see in the grab, it’s an option for buyers that will allow them to pay for items in instalments. It’s administered via PayPal credit.
The option will be visible on view item pages and also in the eBay checkout flow. Having been in a test phase for several months it has now been rolled out across the site. Buyers can apply for credit when they see an item they want to buy with the option. That’s a one-off process and subsequent purchases with credit will be quicker.
From a seller’s perspective, what’s most attractive, is that there’s no need for an opt-in. It’s just going to appear and you need not do anything. And as for taking a payment, you’ll receive the full purchase price as normal and don’t get paid in instalments.
This is new in the UK but has been operating stateside for some time so it’s good to see it cross the pond. You’ll see it on the normal mobile and web versions of eBay but it’s not yet ready for the apps.
We’re not sure what the exact criteria is that determines whether it appears on an item but we’d imagine that this is a service best suited to higher priced items.
Suffice to say, anything that encourages a buyer to shop on eBay is to be welcomed. And if you sell higher priced items this is especially good news and will hopefully convert otherwise hesitant shoppers. It’s notably also a feature that isn’t available on Amazon so it’s a differentiator there too. It’s also heartening to see that nearly 2 years since the eBay/PayPal divorce that the companies are happy to collaborate successfully together.
As a seller, are you happy with the potential of this feature?
4 Responses
£99 and above on my listings.
This is stupid. I have £200+ items that they’re suggesting people can spread over 24 months.
This is going to end very badly. There’s a crass assumption that a product is a one-off purchase and it’s the exact reason why products with ongoing maintenance costs are not a wise credit purchase – the purchaser can’t afford to maintain and then feels remorse that they’re still paying something off that they can’t use.
Just makes it easier for customers to gain more debt, and more paypal accounts going in to the red and limited
I like this. Lets face it – it WILL encourage more people to shop on the platform. ebay is certainly being very pro-active when arranging things like this with paypal. Its ahead of other platforms.
More interestingly……….the “qualification” for legibility of the credit is not based on your credit score – it seems to be based on how you conduct your paypal account. So if your normal credit score is not so high with Experian or Equifax it doesnt mean to say you wont qualify for paypal. I like this and gives customers another avenue to purchase “higher ticket” priced items that they may otherwise be postponing to later.
I for one encourage any initiative that “helps” customers spend more money on the platform.
again whats all the wittering about
paypals just trying to grab a slice of the action
from visa mastercard etc who will already be funding credit for many of these purchases