eBay tightens rules for sellers:
- eBay said Monday that sellers could no longer accept PayPal payments from buyers without accepting credit card transactions, thereby avoiding PayPal fees. eBay acquired PayPal in 2002.
Sellers’ practice of restricting PayPal payment methods “was creating a bad buyer experience,” said PayPal spokeswoman Amanda Pires. “It would be like walking into the grocery store and filling up your cart, getting to the check stand with your credit card and being told sorry, even after you saw the credit card logo outside the store.”
Under PayPal rules, sellers can accept payment through bank transfers or PayPal balances for free. But sellers in the United States who accept credit card payments are charged between 1.9 percent and 2.9 percent of the value of the transaction, based on volume.
Pires sought to quell concerns that eBay was tightening the restrictions merely to boost PayPal’s fee collections.
“We got a lot of community feedback, which is why we’re changing this,” Pires said. “And it was a very small percentage of sellers who were doing this.”
Sure. Like they’re responding to community feedback to lower seller’s fees. I used to spend a lot of time selling inexpensive books on eBay, mostly books I picked up for a buck or so at garage sales and sold for five to ten dollars. Eventually, I calculated that eBay was making more money from my effort than I was.
Community that, eBay.
