Fran Foo | July 04, 2008
ONLINE auction giant eBay has lost its three-month battle against the competition watchdog to institute a controversial payment policy.
eBay had planned to use Australia to trial the ban on all other forms of payment apart from cash on delivery and PayPal, an electronic service it owns.
Critics had likened the proposal to Woolworths dictating that all shoppers use only its in-house credit card for purchases.
To open a PayPal account, bidders need to nominate their credit and debit card or bank account for web purchases.
Sellers on eBay are charged between 1.1 per cent and 2.4 per cent each time a buyer uses PayPal.
In April, eBay applied to the ACCC for legal immunity from sections of the Trade Practices Act as a safety net to shield itself from being sued for engaging in anti-competitive conduct.
The ACCC received about 700 submissions, including the Reserve Bank, Australian Bankers' Association and Google, mostly criticising the move. On June 12, the ACCC released a draft notice revoking immunity.
eBay scrambled for a back-up plan, but executives capitulated yesterday. "We notified the ACCC about our intentions at an 11am meeting," eBay Australia head Simon Smith said. eBay faced no pressure to retreat as "we decided to end this ourselves".
"While we disagree with the ACCC's draft notice, we have decided to withdraw the notification to stop any further confusion and disruption among the eBay community," Mr Smith said.
"Our goal has always been to provide members with a safer experience. Under the current circumstances, we will continue to look for ways to do that while still offering a variety of payment choices."
Australia's Professional eBay Sellers Alliance president, Phil Leahy, said it was "great for the eBay community".
"This will remove the confusion that's been around since this proposal was first made. We're looking forward to getting back to business and providing a great experience to eBay buyers," Mr Leahy said.
David Bell, chief executive of the Australian Bankers' Association, said: "It is in the best interest of consumers that competition is maintained and eBay customers are able to use a wider range of payment methods."
A final decision on eBay's protection status was expected to be made by end-July. However, the matter will go no further since eBay has withdrawn its notification, an ACCC spokesman said.
Your Comments:
36 Comment(s)
wow ... I think people need to kind of lay off one another, getting kind of aggressive and rude for no reason?
how long has oztion been open???
Some of our members have brought this news page to our attention. The Smart Bid Auctions Team had nothing to do with the posts displayed on this page. We are very disappointed with the content / comments which Australian IT have permitted / posted and the image they have allowed to portray of Smart Bid Auctions. We thank any and all individual(s) for your enthusiasm, however ask to refrain from any further Smart Bid Auctions advertising on Australian IT.
Smartbid should be called NOBID..what a joke, obviously being pumped by owners. Here a tip for them. Start with 200,000 listings & some traffic..you might be taken seriously then.
SOMEONE POSTED THIS ON THE FORMUM TODAY VERY APT !!
An open letter to all in the eBay community.
sirguitardave (33 ) View Listings | Report 07-07-08 04:35 EST
eBay does not yet realize that the whole buyer / seller process is symbiotic. Without one you will not attract the other. I too have noticed a difference in the availability of different items as well as a significant drop in actual auctions by "hobbyist sellers" and now even professional sellers. eBay has destroyed the relationship between itself and their sellers !! If there aren't the sellers then buyers will drift away. Buyers are more transient than sellers.
eBay's propaganda of late has been that they will get more buyers through Paypal and its alleged safety. I found it difficult at first to accept that the people at eBay had so little idea about how their own business works, but it is true, they must just not understand the critical relationship between buyers and sellers. If you use an analogy of fish and fisherman, fish being buyers and fisherman being sellers, then you realize that no matter how many fish you have in an area you won't get any catch (sales) if there aren't any fisherman to pull them in. There will just be fish swimming around endlessly (buyers in cyberspace), not getting caught (completed sales).
Having extra buyers doesn't matter a jot if there aren't the varied and unique sellers to buy from. eBay gets most of its recurrent income from completed sales (caught fish), but eBay is presently under the corporate delusion that it can somehow get a bigger catch from less fisherman who also have to struggle with more red tape and financial disincentives (also soul destroying propaganda!!). To sum up, I think that even if eBay had been run by a small dog (perhaps a fox terrier) these last few months, they could not be in a weaker position looking forward than they are now.
eBay whatever you are paying your policy making team, it is too much, as their gross incompetence and unwarranted arrogance is killing off all the previous hard work that went into building the eBay community. P.S. Frankly I could do a better job of running eBay and I don't say this lightly as I consider myself a humble man, but them's the FACTS. Perhaps eBay you should consider this diatribe of mine as a job application, because your business is now clearly and presently losing consciousness, and is bleeding out!! What a Pity for all eBayers who enjoy their shopping hobby and /or their eBay business.
WOW someoneone has been busy writing adverts for the "greatest site since ebay". The trouble is they have been going for 4 days and have 200 members. http://www.oztion.com.au has 300,000 members and over 750,000 items listed. The second largest auction site in Australia and FREE to list.
Ebay sellers, I wouldn't worry too much about PayPal now. Simply offer a discount for payment by your preferred method of payment and let the buyer decide whether they want to save money or have PayPal protection. Just make sure your discount is big enough to cover PayPal fees and registered and/or insured postage for PayPal-paid items. And of course be prepared for an increase in both ebay and PayPal fees to make up for a loss in revenue due to ebay's failure to force PayPal onto the ebay community.
personally i'm not using any auction site at this moment however I think that its pretty sad that people are getting defensive over these posts! if these people are advertising all the better to them, if there not it seems like people like their site ... who cares, get a life!
haha - sounds like some people are getting jealous or something. I'm not getting commission from anybody, im simply speaking my mind and the last time i checked this was aloud. I personally think eBay has gone down the drain drastically in the past year and i am glad to see sites like this coming up, looks to me like alot of other people are agreeing so get over it! Secondly i think it is a bit hard for magazines to list this site sinces its only been opened like for what 2days???
To okay, I find your comment disgusting and degrading. as a new user to Australian IT after googling ebay alteratives, I finally found one which I believed to have a chance. Thismorning I had nothing but praise for Australian IT, but now I am shocked to see that Australian IT would let such an immature and politically incorrect comment be exposed to many readers. I am not on commission, and I pray that you do stay with ebay because its users like you which have made ebay the hell it is.
OK, who else thinks that SmartBid is doing some free advertising on these comments, almost every comment that mentions SmartBid is exactly the same style and saying how much they love it.... looks like a cheap shot to get some users... because of this... i will never use it and continue to use eBay.
Are you guys on commission for smartbid.com.au?
I'm beginning to wonder if all the smartbid comments are from the same person..........
@ Brad Peterson - oztion has been around for years and considering this - has not got very far at all. at the rate smart bid is going, there is a very bright future indeed. none of my items ever sold on oztion, hence my reasons for terminating my membership and i've been waiting for this perfect alternative.
About time they canned the idea to use Paypal. Can Smartbid stop the spamming?
I haven't used eBay since I first read about the Paypal decision. While I accept the eBay management's argument about buyer safety I'm afraid the record (that which web site management couldn't delete) doesn't reflect the claim. Scams, fraud and shilling were still happening. The practise of hiding bidder names actually encourages shilling for goodness' sake. Paypal is also a company masquerading as a financial institution. The fact that it is an eBay subsidiary meant that eBay got to double, triple and quadruple dip in the transaction process that was and is a sale on eBay. Getting (actually that's MAKING people pay) paid four times for the one transaction (yes I KNOW the technicalities of the situation) is just immoral in my book.
This week's NetGuide magazine lists OZtion as Australia's second largest auction site (not that far behind eBay) with Trading Post third. Smart Bid doesn't even rate a mention. Cold hard facts speak for themselves.
Smart Bid doesn't even come close to being as big and popular as OZtion (www.oztion.com.au) let alone eBay. There is NO WAY Smart Bid can be the leading auction site and the best thing since sliced bread after only 3 days! Any sort of claim like this is pure advertising or a blatant lie (same thing really).
Looks like most of the comments on this forum is coming from smartbid employees. The site is empty and nothing exciting about it.
Until PayPal becomes optional for sellers, I will NOT be going back! Surely it is anti-competitive for eBay to force all sellers to offer PayPal.
I LOVE the new Smart Bid Auction Site - www.smartbid.com.au It's a fantastic site, easy to use, great design detail and offers so many options, overall a fantastic new auction site. Just what I have been looking for!!
I've been using Oztion for a while now - an Aussie auction site that has no registration fees, no listing fees, the final value fees are a fraction of what ebay charges, they are great in customer service if you have a problem with a buyer, and you can pay whichever way you want if you're buying. www.oztion.com.au
Smart Bid isn't the "leading Australian auction site" by any stretch of the imagination. It only has 227 users and 216 items listed (hardly "lots"). By comparison, OZtion (www.oztion.com.au) has 293,467 members and over 750,000 items listed.
Finally no more PayPal nonsense. However, I would point out, eBay has the most buyers and the most sellers, and the most features. The people who run smart bid (who are blatently using this forum as advertising space) can't deny that their site isn't up to the standard of eBay, yet.
i had heard about smart bid auctions but did not realise how good of an alternative it is until now! thanks to all for letting me know about it - my long hard search for that ebay alternative is now over. i can see smart bid auctions being THE online auction site in a few months time. well thats the paypal issue over - but the way petrol prices are going, im going to have to smart bid my car soon!!
i just checked out the smart bid auctions site, looks like a great deal - very lively site with already a lot of auctions on there. just registered and cant wait to get home and list all my ready to sell items. im a long time ebay user, recently left.
I had my business running on eBay for quite a long time, however was horrified when I heard about their Pay Pal Plan. In the mean time I found smartbid - www.smartbid.com.au - I have now said goodbye to eBay and hello to Smart Bid !!!
Smartbid.com.au looks great! Free! and it's Aussie. I've found my new home
I also came across Smart Bid Auctions (www.smartbid.com.au) - definitely looks like it has become the leading Australian auction site. Great registration deal of only $5.00 and with so many options on their site. I encourage people to definitely give it a go, you won't regret it!
We won the battle and this is good news for buyers, but the war is not yet over. eBay is still holding a gun to Sellers forcing us to offer PayPal as an "option" (if it's mandatory it's not an option) whether we want to or not as a condition of listing. The ACCC needs to stop eBay forcing PayPal onto sellers.
I have been looking for an alternative to eBay ever since this whole "pay pal" junk started - personally I think eBay will just let this settle for a while and then want to start it back up again - in the mean time I have found another site www.smartbid.com.au - and i am loving it, have already listed so much stuff for a quarter of the the price eBay would normally cost me! It seems to be growing really fast as well - looks like eBay has lost this war.
Too late ebay - A new australian online Auction website has emerged from the ashes you%u2019ve left. The paypal only payment stunt which discusted thousands of ebay members has got them all flocking to alternatives, the stand out being Smart Bid Auctions - www.smartbid.com.au now former ebay members have all had a taste of life without ebay, we all realise that there is no need to go back, especially now that people can see that there are other online auction alternatives - some which are even better than ebay. smart bid auctions has only been open a day or two and already has a few hundred members - $5 seller registration and verification and you can sell as many items as you want for the life time of your membership. i've listed quite a few items on there, i worked it out that it would have cost me over $80 on ebay - but on Smart Bid it was $5 and i've still got as many as I want to go.
This paypal hitch proved to all Australians that ebay has obviously lost touch with its consumers. Now we have all had a taste of life without ebay %u2013 we%u2019ve all seen that there is no need to go back. Especially when there are other alternatives, the stand out being Smart Bid Auctions. Good one ebay, you%u2019ve lost us for good!
Jeeeez, I bet whoever made the paypal decision at ebay is now sitting in a gutter somewhere, asking for change. Its too late for ebay now %u2013 the alternatives have had time to shine and theres no reason for me, along with many other Australians to go back because there are better offers out there. Trading post is okay, but I can see them charging a packet and a half once the promotions end. Another one I%u2019ve found is SMART BID AUCTIONS. Its Australian owned and from their blurbs %u2013 they understand exactly what Australia needs. GOODBYE EBAY!
I don%u2019t have any reason to go back to ebay, this paypal ordeal made me search for alternatives and im actually glad I did. One site to watch is www.smartbid.com.au - that%u2019s a real ebay competitor, I see them being THE Australian online market place in a few years and ebay going bust due to another stupid money grabbing stunt such as this!
Ebay Sellers still have to offer paypal as a payment option on all of their listings, ebay sellers can not leave feedback for buyers, ebay sellers still have to put up with all the ridiculous ebay fees. Im currently selling successfully on another new site (Smart Bid Auctions) which has popped up almost overnight, and is the great alternative that I think all Australians have been searching for.
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