eBay have announced to investors that the first eBay Digital Wallet is coming soon and due to be launched in the next quarter.
This solves an issue missing since eBay divorced itself from PayPal and implemented eBay payments. With PayPal, consumer sellers got paid and had instant funds in their wallet which they could spend on eBay. Invariably this made a circular economy where you could sell an item, spend the money on eBay and then sell more when your PayPal funds were depleted. In many consumers minds, this sell to buy practice didn’t generate real money as it wasn’t in their bank account and so splurging this free cash on eBay was a routine way of life.
When eBay payments came in, consumers no longer had this ‘free’ cash to spend and once it’s in your bank account, for many in their overdraft, the danger for eBay is that the money disappears never to be seen again. With the eBay Digital Wallet it’s likely that more money will remain within the eBay economy and that’s great news for sellers.
I’m thrilled to announce eBay’s first digital wallet where you can store cash balance. Customers will soon be able to easily accumulate a balance in their eBay account to spend on their next favourite item. Allowing customers to seamlessly turn their sales into purchases is yet another example of a unique eBay multiplier effect. With our scale, resources, and talent, the opportunities for payments are just endless.
– Jamie Iannone, CEO, eBay
7 Responses
Unless I’ve misunderstood, it’s like a glorified gift voucher. If you have tangible funds in your bank account you might spend it on eBay or wherever you please. With eBay’s digital wallet, you’re limited to just one platform. Might be useful for some, but sounds limiting.
One of the dumbest aspects of Ianonne’s changes to the site is he has failed to realise that sellers also buy from Ebay. Or at least they did when they could earn a decent amount on the site. Beware the fees for the payout within 30 minutes that they’ve also announced. Another example of selling back to sellers something they used to have for free in the past, e.g., site visibility, international selling, getting paid instantly etc etc
eBay finally realising that they are rupturing both buyers and sellers? If you continually take water out of the well it eventually runs dry.
Too late though eBay, you had massive market share and now are irrelevant. So sad. But that’s what bad management gets you
All part of ebay’s tech lead reimagination.
Just like ebay new listing tool which I tried the other day. In true ebay style makes slower as have to click in and out of boxes, scroll down to find the right tick box.
ebay are just learning how to add a video to the site where as other have been doing it for year and Tic Tock you can now do live selling. Plus you have to wait up to 48 hours for ebay to approve a video.
Add a video to a few listings, go back in and check the listing and different videos appear in the listing to what was uploaded.
If you are going to charge premium fees for shop and selling fees at least offer a premium service that works and gets things right.