In an announcement on the eBay AU site yesterday morning eBay informed us that they have decided to “withdraw” the notification in front of the ACCC which was asking for a special treatment in being allowed to enforce a PayPal only policy.

This will be a great relief to many people, buyers and sellers alike that were incensed by the proposed withdrawal of alternative payment options on the site. Although many people do choose to use PayPal as a payment option, there are many for whom other payment options fit in better with their business model or preferred method of paying for items over the internet.

I feel that this announcement is a win for common sense.

There is something though that still concerns me about the whole situation. The fact is, all sellers still must offer PayPal as an option. So even if the nature of your business model makes PayPal an nonviable option you are still forced to offer it and accept it if your customers choose to use it.

Of course sellers are now looking for ways to try to “encourage” other payment options. I wish to warn you to be very, very careful how you tread here. eBay is quite clear in its “Misleading and Discouraging Payments Policy” document:

“Sellers who state in their listing (in the “Payment Details” section) that they accept certain payment methods must not selectively offer those payment methods to buyers or discourage buyers from using those payment methods.

This means that sellers must always accept payment from buyers through the payment methods they have selected in their Payment Details section of their listing, and must not act in any way to discourage buyers from paying by these methods.”

eBay will not take too kindly to you actively discouraging bidders from using PayPal even by you stating how much the fees impact on your profits.

However there is one strategy that I believe is valid. In all of my listings where I accept personal cheque I always state that the item will be shipped after the payment has been received and cleared into my bank account. As everyone knows it can take a couple of working days for a cheque to clear. It is very rare that I receive a cheque for payment of an item as many people like immediacy.

Many people pay with PayPal because they see it as an immediate payment. However, for you PayPal is not necessarily immediate. It is there in your PayPal account but it can still take up to 5-7 days after you have requested a transfer for it to show up in your own bank account. Thus I believe that you can legitimately state that the item will not be shipped until the money has been cleared into your own bank account.  This in itself may “encourage” some buyers to pay directly into your bank account if they want to expediate the delivery process.

Be aware though, if you decide to implement this policy that PayPal charges you a fee for withdrawing amounts under $150.00

I’ll be writing another post on PayPal soon and some of the issues that you need to be aware of as a seller.  Til then, feel free to leave a comment below on your views of this whole situation.

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Are you going to be in Sydney on the 30th of June? The ACCC has been asked to hold a “pre-decision” conference to which all interested parties are invited to attend.

A pre-decision conference is a public meeting to which all parties that may have an interest
regarding the notification are invited. Conferences are conducted informally, without the
participation of legal or other professional advisers.

ACCC Pre-Decision Conference PDF

The conference will be held at the Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour, Sydney at 1:30pm. If you wish to attend you must first notify the ACCC of your intention by 12pm Friday the 27th of June. Check this PDF for more details.

Hopefully the issue will be finalised soon.

After the draft announcement by the ACCC stating that eBay will not be given permission to institute its PayPal only policy, eBay was still hopeful of getting a decision in its favour.
This was evidenced by its original response to the announcement, dated 13th of June:

“eBay intends to work with the ACCC and hopes to achieve a final outcome which has the safety and security of eBay’s members as its paramount objective. eBay will delay the removal of other payment methods from the site until Tuesday 15 July.”

General Announcements 13 June 2008

So anytime that you visited the site you have been reminded that this is only a slight delay.  Once eBay, with all its meaningless assertions about promoting consumer safety gets it through the ACCC’s thick skull, then everything will be all right and the policy will by implemented as planned by the 15th of July.

But it seems as if someone has had a word in eBay’s ear about being a little too overconfident.
Today eBay made another announcement:

“Changes to eBay.com.au scheduled for 15 July are being postponed until the review process with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) regarding its recent draft notice is complete. As previously announced, eBay.com.au is continuing to work with the ACCC to achieve an outcome that benefits buyers and sellers.” and,
“Please note that some of our onsite communications may still refer to changes taking place on 15 July 2008. These communications are in the process of being updated.”

General Announcements 26 June 2008

I wonder if they are finally seeing the light that their little plan is doomed.  I wonder what will happen next?

Did you hear the chorus of cheers go around today. eBay sellers will be rejoicing as they hear of the draft notice issued by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission regarding eBay’s proposition to mandate the use of PayPal only payment.

In the News released today the ACCC Chairman Mr Graeme Samuel states:

“The ACCC is concerned that the notified conduct will allow eBay to use its market power in the supply of online marketplaces to substantially lessen competition in the market in which PayPal operates,”

and that

“In light of the serious competition concerns raised in the draft notice and the significant concerns raised by interested parties, I have asked eBay to delay implementation of the second stage of the conduct until a final decision is made by the ACCC,” Mr Samuel said.

So a final decision has yet to be made but it looks as if common sense will rein. Click here to read the full ACCC Notification

Head on over to the eBay discussion boards if you want to join in on the celebrations.

The cat is out of the bag. Google has been named as the author of the “name withheld” document that I quoted yesterday. According to The Register David Bromage from Canberra rather ingeniously inserted the PDF document into a text editor which then revealed all of the metadata source code of the document with “ACCC Submission by Google” written for all to see.

Google operate a similar system to PayPal called Google Checkout in both the US and UK. eBay do not let their US and UK sellers offer it as a payment option. Google would dearly love to be able to enter the eBay market.

Currently Google do not offer their online payment system in Australia and apparently do not have plans to do so in the near future. Even so it is in their interest to see this submission by eBay defeated because regardless of what eBay says about its future plans, a win here will make it easier for them to expand their PayPal only policy into other countries. This is definitely not in Google’s interest.