eBay have confirmed that for the first time ever, buyers can use Apple Pay on eBay to pay for purchases. eBay have also revealed that they are allowing a few sellers to opt back out of eBay Managed Payments after saying that no opt out was possible.
Apple Pay on eBay
Alyssa Cutright, VP Payments at eBay announced the news along with an update on the eBay Managed Payments, one week after they first went live for sellers on the marketplace. There will be a very limited number of buyers who are in a position to use Apple Pay – of course they’ll have to be shopping on eBay on a compatible Apple device and stumble across a listing (out of the billion plus listings available on eBay) from one of the few thousand sellers opted in to eBay Managed Payments.
It’s worth remembering that for those opted into eBay Managed Payments that PayPal is not an option and won’t be until the summer of 2019. Apple Pay on eBay is the first new payment method for many years and the first which caters exclusively for mobile users. Next up it would be nice to see Google Pay for the half of the world that doesn’t have an iPhone.
“For buyers who purchase from managed payments sellers, the checkout flow notifies them that PayPal is not yet available. And when buyers are on a compatible mobile device, they will see ApplePay as an available option.”
– Alyssa Cutright, VP Payments, eBay
Opt out of eBay Managed Payments
Another point worth noting is that originally eBay stated that buyers who opt in to eBay Managed Payments would not be able to opt out. This appears to have changed – partly because PayPal have got a bit heavy handed with sellers who had taken out a PayPal Working Capital loan. A condition of a PayPal loan is that the merchant doesn’t divert their incoming funds away from PayPal. Opting in to eBay Managed Payments diverts the funds and leaves PayPal with no way to recoup payments against the loan.
Now Alyssa has revealed that if sellers have signed up to eBay Managed Payments and discovered a major issue (although she didn’t mention PayPal Working Capital), that their is an option to leave the eBay Managed Payments programme.
“If managed payments doesn’t work for a seller, we want to work with them to see if we can help them be successful with the changes, ensure we understand and document what isn’t working, and if needed revert their account to the prior state. That said, the process to revert accounts to their prior payment settings can be complex as orders and listings can be in different states, and this process needs to be managed individually with each seller.”
– Alyssa Cutright, VP Payments, eBay
5 Responses
I was cautiously looking forward to the Ayden system as a method to save on our payment fees but have determined that I won’t implement it until I can accept both Ayden and PayPal at the same time which is not possible at this time. I use PayPal to pay for my shipping, fees for various services I use and for purchases made online, and Ayden’s quick payment to me means that I won’t have a stash of “cash” to pay that way.
A further complication to switching is if you have a loan from PayPal, you will no longer have the cash flow to pay for that loan and/or for them to be able to determine what that payment will be. You may be in violation of the terms of your loan.
I haven’t run into a seller who can not accept PayPal yet, and I will have to explore if I can pay them as in my family I am not the one who maintains a Credit Card and I do not like them, or perhaps more truthfully, I like them too much so avoid them altogether.
I think eBay have just worked out what everybody else already knew, dumping PayPal for Adyen was not a good idea.
Having used both a PayPal Working Capital loan and lending from Amazon I found it a crippling way to borrow money. Paying back 30% a month just makes you need to take out a new loan as soon as you have paid off the last. How many people make more than 30% profit on the items they sell? If not you are making a cash-flow loss for 3 months while you pay back the loan. I have now opted for an overdraft facility from my bank which I took out with a few simple clicks through the online system.
Well done to eBay for introducing Apple pay and lets hope they introduce Google Pay as well.
The idea of losing paypal til summer 2019 is such a clanger, I’m amazed anyone was daft enough to sign up in the first place. I wouldn’t, just for the loss of ebay GSP sales, which require paypal. But I’m glad ebay have seen sense and are allowing unhappy sellers to opt back out.
Ebay have gone about it the wrong way IMO. Instead of trying to force buyers to pay through ebay managed payments for a small number of opted in sellers who can’t accept paypal, they should be offering a choice and an incentive. As we know from the flash sales, ebay is willing to drop their FVF to provide a discount of 10% to 15%. If they did such a discount to buyers for that first purchase through ebay managed payments, slowly but surely, they’d get buyers converted from paypal and wean them off it.
It’s that simple. Carrot or stick? Err….carrot please!
I don’t believe the opting out has anything to do with PayPal Working capital. Perusing the eBay forums it’s easy enough to note that sellers are somewhat revolting – experience 40, 50, 60%+ declines in sales. I’ve yet to come across any comments with PayPal being heavy handed with their working capital loans.