Payments on eBay will be changing over the course of 2019. And, so far as a British or European seller, you won’t have been impacted in any way by the tests and trials that the opt-in merchants in the USA have experienced. But during this year you will start to experience changes to what is the biggest development to the eBay marketplaces in many years.
Testing has begun in the USA but it’s voluntary there at this early stage. But doubtless over the course of this year the trials and test will be more widespread and experienced by more sellers around the world.
And just in case these changes have passed you by, here are the basics and links to the numerous things that we’ve already written, eBay merchants on this side of the Atlantic will start see changes as the full roll-out (at some point in 2020/2020) draws ever closer. The new compulsory system will see eBay intervening in payments across the marketplace. To use the buzzword, eBay will now be ‘intermediating” payments and PayPal will no longer be the standard global payment method.
Indeed, as it stands at the moment, with the new payments on eBay system (widely know as ebay managed payments), PayPal isn’t currently available. But that is expected to be remedied in 2019 and that will make a massive difference to the viability of the new system.
You should also be able to continue to opt out should you wish to for the remainder of the year. The tests so far have been entirely opt-in and we’d caution any merchant (regardless of your enthusiasm for the new payments on eBay service) because it could prove to be disruptive to your business.
Despite the potential for very huge upheaval during the transition period between now and some point (probably) in 2020, the new service does bring the potential of benefits for merchants that are welcome and those will become more apparent over the course of the year. Let us know about your experiences.
15 Responses
I would be interested to know the potential benefits…. Paypal is pretty much universally known and is about as trusted as any major payment system. The new system will be linked to ebay in a more obvious way and so no matter how good Arden may be, they will be viewed as ‘under ebays banner’ which isn’t good as trust in ebay is pretty much rubbish!
Curious as to how payments will work if running paypal as well… it could mean 2 lots of financial accounts, 2 separate funding streams, one whcih is paid out daily ( i really dont want this), and another that i call off as i want it. To be honest from my point of you it will just be another layer of extra figures and work, basically just so Ebay can line their pockets a bit more with my money. ( not to mention that reducing my paypal flow will reduce my paypal merchant rate, thus costing me more!)
However…. im open to hear of other benefits!
Toby, so ebay sales have increased over the years despite trust in ebay being pretty much rubbish?
Good trick.
We don’t have to accept new payment system, just need to be able to drop ebay as a selling channel. To me it comes down to ‘what is best for my business’.
To keep selling on ebay (which is a considerable chunk of my sales) I have to eventually use their payment method? Then will eventually use their payment method.
I suppose this was inevitable since Ebay/Paypal was split up. Ebay wants its own in-house payment system to get a cut of the financial transaction. And of course to echo Amazon. As sellers we will get what we are given but what about buyers? Will they have to register a card with Ebay rather than using their PayPal account? Will this complicate or delay payments thus creating a potential barrier between buyer and seller? If PayPal remains an option I don’t think many buyers will bother to change payment methods as there is no financial incentive to do so.
Unless Ebay’s transaction fees are less than PayPal’s I don’t think there will be any advantage to sellers. This is another change to suit Ebay’s pocket.
We have had advance notice of the change – what about advantages – there are any?
Toby, once Paypal is brought into the mix again, it will be an eBay paypal account and not your personal one as I understand. All distribution of funds will still come daily via the Arden/eBay payment system. Of course that may change as time goes by.
I don’t think buyers will be too concerned about registering a card with eBay – consumers are used to having to do this when buying online and it will likely be the same as Amazon’s One Click buying.
One benefit to sellers may be an end to a buyer getting a refund through PayPal when the time limit with eBay has passed.
I buy and sell on eBay.
As far as buying is concerned, If there was a great benefit to buying on ebay, that is you could pay through PayPal and if there was a problem, you could get a refund very quick and easily either from the seller or from PayPal themselves. For me, if there is no PayPal choice I will probably buy elsewhere.
As for selling it works in reverse. If there is a problem you can sort it out very quickly through PayPal, and its only one tier of paperwork. There is only one beneficiary to all this and that will be ebay themselves. Its just another example of them riding roughshod over the seller who are ebay’s true customers. I will really consider stopping selling on this platform altogether.
Well it will unravel as another blow to sellers.
At present with the new enforced 30 day returns a buyer has not really purchased an item until the 30 days are up as it could come back. So a high value product where you only stock about 2 will now be out of stock for a month as you do not want to restock and then have it returned putting pounds on your shelf. Then eventually eBay will hold this payment for 30 days as well to earn more interest with Ayden meaning yet more misery. They continually treat sellers as if they are multi million pound businesses and ignore the fact most sellers on eBay are small and cannot afford most of these practices but eBay just plough on regardless and keep teling us sales are up when google searches show a different picture. Sellers sales are down. eBay profits are up as they are making us bleed.
I’m a buyer and a seller. I’ll buy elsewhere from eBay and buy from straight from etsy as quite a lot of eBay sellers are already on there.
I only trust PayPal, I do use stripe but have been told by buyers that they do not trust this system and prefer PayPal as it’s a name to trust.
When will there be any good news on the eBay platform? Enforced 30 days returns now- any return request can’t be fought either- there is no seller protection whatsoever. Another empty box return from America this week of an expensive collectible item- this is now rife and just can’t be dealt with. Add on top of that disbursement system payments that will be clearly in favour of eBay,,,,,, many sellers will be wondering if it’s worth it anymore. We certainly are- after 16 years of trading on there it looks like this year could be our last