Ebay using "safety" as a marketing strategy
Since last December we've been accepting electronic payments via Propay on ebay. Through the early fall of 2008 after ebay announced the requirement to accept electronic payments we refused to do it. We tried two of the other online selling places, Goantiques and Bonanzle. We still have listings on Bonanzle. Unfortunately selling on either venue was a rare event. I wish them the best and hope that people get accustomed to buying there but for us nothing was happening.
I hope that some day there are all sorts of excellent selling venues online to give ebay some competition and to create a healthy marketplace. We do need choices in who we do business with. So far ebay is still the thousand pound gorilla of online auction listings. Even when we aren't trying particularly hard to sell on ebay, our items still sell there. It's hard to argue with that.
Propay is working out as a simple means of accepting credit card payments. Ebay has Propay incorporated into the checkout process so that it is a simple matter of a buyer providing their credit card information to Propay in much the same way as if they were buying a book on Amazon or any other online retail establishment where credit cards are taken. Buyers don't have to register with Propay in the way that they do with Paypal.
One drawback, which is NOT the fault of Propay, is that buyers sometimes ask us if Propay is "safe". I don't think they'd be asking us this question if ebay hadn't marketed Paypal as being safe in a way that implies just about anything else is unsafe. As though no matter whom a buyer chooses to do business with, no matter what the seller feedback is, no matter the evidence of their own common sense and eyes, all will be okay if a buyer just uses Paypal.
It is ridiculous! Why have a feedback system that gathers the evidence of years of trustworthy behavior by a seller when that feedback is discounted and ebay promotes a payment provider rather than the history, experience, and integrity of individual sellers? Why have feedback at all if that is how we make our choices? Why not just call all sellers slime buckets and tell buyers that they are totally at risk even to think of buying anything on ebay? In my not so humble opinion this is a ridiculous shortsighted marketing strategy designed to increase the use of Paypal while lowering the image of ebay as a place for buying good things!
It sets up an atmosphere where buyers feel as though they need to be protected from big bad sellers by Big Brother Ebay who watches over all. Yet ebay watches very inefficiently since fraud does occur and often is perpetrated on sellers by con artists who play the weak points in the ebay/Paypal system. It does not stop fraud committed on both buyers and sellers by con artists and it weakens the positive relationships that can and should occur between good buyers and good sellers.
All fraud needs to be fought including the frauds perpetrated on sellers. This is something that you can experience yourself by offering something valuable on ebay and praying to the gods above if you accept Paypal and send your item to Italy for example (buyers in Italy have some of the worst track records for defrauding ebay sellers) that the buyer is not one of those con artists who claim that they received an empty box or the item was not as described. They get to keep the item and they get their money back and the seller is shafted. Yet ebay promotes Paypal as "safe". Safe for whom? Sellers are people too! Where is it written that a con artist should get to profit so easily from their activities?
So we get these questions from buyers about the safety of Propay as though somehow, just because it is not Paypal, it is somehow questionable. If you think about it logically, why would ebay allow any credit card processor to be incorporated into the ebay checkout system if ebay didn't think it was safe? Propay is incorporated into the ebay checkout system for sellers who accept Propay. Ebay would not do it if it was "unsafe".
If ebay didn't allow any other electronic payment system outside of Paypal, they might well be under scrutiny for an anti-trust violation since they own Paypal. They get a piece of every Paypal transaction as well as a piece of the initial ebay transaction. Just this last week I read of government scrutiny of AT&T due to its being the only phone provider offered on the iPhone. Ebay tries hard without going for the whole brass ring to make Paypal the only payment provider on ebay.
For a company such as ebay to insist on their users using only one electronic payment provider that was owned by them would put them at risk of that kind of scrutiny. So they allow sellers to offer Propay and other merchant card providers while they try really really hard to convince everyone through subtle and not so subtle ways that Paypal is the only safe way to pay. Safety is their schtick in this promotion. It is the carrot at the end of the stick that gets people to think more fondly of Paypal and what Paypal will do for them. When, if they used common sense and chose the businesses wisely that they bought from on ebay, they would have the kind of safety that you get when you make sensible choices about whom you do business with rather than relying on a payment provider that doesn't have a clue whether you are doing business with a good guy or a bad guy.
Another thing about paying for items on ebay that some buyers and also some sellers don't realize is that sellers can accept checks and money orders. They just aren't allowed to say that in their listings. They most certainly are allowed to accept them. That is another fiction that ebay allows to circulate.
We've been buying and selling on ebay since 1998 and we still haven't paid for anything bought on ebay with Paypal. We haven't signed up for Paypal and unless hell freezes over it is unlikely that we ever will.
Ginny
I hope that some day there are all sorts of excellent selling venues online to give ebay some competition and to create a healthy marketplace. We do need choices in who we do business with. So far ebay is still the thousand pound gorilla of online auction listings. Even when we aren't trying particularly hard to sell on ebay, our items still sell there. It's hard to argue with that.
Propay is working out as a simple means of accepting credit card payments. Ebay has Propay incorporated into the checkout process so that it is a simple matter of a buyer providing their credit card information to Propay in much the same way as if they were buying a book on Amazon or any other online retail establishment where credit cards are taken. Buyers don't have to register with Propay in the way that they do with Paypal.
One drawback, which is NOT the fault of Propay, is that buyers sometimes ask us if Propay is "safe". I don't think they'd be asking us this question if ebay hadn't marketed Paypal as being safe in a way that implies just about anything else is unsafe. As though no matter whom a buyer chooses to do business with, no matter what the seller feedback is, no matter the evidence of their own common sense and eyes, all will be okay if a buyer just uses Paypal.
It is ridiculous! Why have a feedback system that gathers the evidence of years of trustworthy behavior by a seller when that feedback is discounted and ebay promotes a payment provider rather than the history, experience, and integrity of individual sellers? Why have feedback at all if that is how we make our choices? Why not just call all sellers slime buckets and tell buyers that they are totally at risk even to think of buying anything on ebay? In my not so humble opinion this is a ridiculous shortsighted marketing strategy designed to increase the use of Paypal while lowering the image of ebay as a place for buying good things!
It sets up an atmosphere where buyers feel as though they need to be protected from big bad sellers by Big Brother Ebay who watches over all. Yet ebay watches very inefficiently since fraud does occur and often is perpetrated on sellers by con artists who play the weak points in the ebay/Paypal system. It does not stop fraud committed on both buyers and sellers by con artists and it weakens the positive relationships that can and should occur between good buyers and good sellers.
All fraud needs to be fought including the frauds perpetrated on sellers. This is something that you can experience yourself by offering something valuable on ebay and praying to the gods above if you accept Paypal and send your item to Italy for example (buyers in Italy have some of the worst track records for defrauding ebay sellers) that the buyer is not one of those con artists who claim that they received an empty box or the item was not as described. They get to keep the item and they get their money back and the seller is shafted. Yet ebay promotes Paypal as "safe". Safe for whom? Sellers are people too! Where is it written that a con artist should get to profit so easily from their activities?
So we get these questions from buyers about the safety of Propay as though somehow, just because it is not Paypal, it is somehow questionable. If you think about it logically, why would ebay allow any credit card processor to be incorporated into the ebay checkout system if ebay didn't think it was safe? Propay is incorporated into the ebay checkout system for sellers who accept Propay. Ebay would not do it if it was "unsafe".
If ebay didn't allow any other electronic payment system outside of Paypal, they might well be under scrutiny for an anti-trust violation since they own Paypal. They get a piece of every Paypal transaction as well as a piece of the initial ebay transaction. Just this last week I read of government scrutiny of AT&T due to its being the only phone provider offered on the iPhone. Ebay tries hard without going for the whole brass ring to make Paypal the only payment provider on ebay.
For a company such as ebay to insist on their users using only one electronic payment provider that was owned by them would put them at risk of that kind of scrutiny. So they allow sellers to offer Propay and other merchant card providers while they try really really hard to convince everyone through subtle and not so subtle ways that Paypal is the only safe way to pay. Safety is their schtick in this promotion. It is the carrot at the end of the stick that gets people to think more fondly of Paypal and what Paypal will do for them. When, if they used common sense and chose the businesses wisely that they bought from on ebay, they would have the kind of safety that you get when you make sensible choices about whom you do business with rather than relying on a payment provider that doesn't have a clue whether you are doing business with a good guy or a bad guy.
Another thing about paying for items on ebay that some buyers and also some sellers don't realize is that sellers can accept checks and money orders. They just aren't allowed to say that in their listings. They most certainly are allowed to accept them. That is another fiction that ebay allows to circulate.
We've been buying and selling on ebay since 1998 and we still haven't paid for anything bought on ebay with Paypal. We haven't signed up for Paypal and unless hell freezes over it is unlikely that we ever will.
Ginny
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