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eBay finishes PayPal Acquisition

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the one-stop-shopping dept.

Aidenn writes "As some may remember, eBay was in the process of merging with PayPal. It is finally finished. eBay has information here. news.com has a more complete story."

3 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Less Competition by pgrote · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As the dotcom boom hits bottom you look around and notice that fewer and fewer services have competitors anymore. That's the way it has become in on-line payments. There are a couple of alternatives that may still unseat PayPal as the major player in the space, but now that eBay has them I doubt it.

    Low barrier of entry means this and the auction space are ripe, but getting traction in it is hard.

    What concerns me the most is the service aspect of the deal. PayPal has a bad reputation, but there is hope it will it will improve.

    ---
    Go Daddy President Interview

  2. finally... by MarvinMouse · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now that there is a reasonably reliable company running PayPal. I am just going to wait for a few more to jump on the bandwagon.

    Maybe now, electronic cash will become far more acceptable, and smaller vendors will be able to open shop online without having to bow down to Visa and Mastercard's absurd policies. (or having to demand cash payment, which makes online business meaningless really.)

    EBay has shown auctions can be done effectively online, now maybe they'll show that E-Cash can be done as well.

    --
    ~ kjrose
  3. eBay by rice_burners_suck · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This looks like good news for eBay, which has become quite an online marketplace, but a few small things bother me.
    • PayPal is a very convenient system for moving money around. It's easy to pay from your checking account or credit card, and as such, it gives normal people the ability to "accept" credit cards as a form of payment. But, will PayPal slowly evolve into something that's only used on eBay, or will it continue to be operated as a standalone system for doing just what it does right now?
    • What is very convenient about eBay is that you put a minimal amount of information into it to start an auction, and you can host a rather large amount of information on your own servers if you want. This gives you the ability to work with your buyers however you want, to simplify your logistics and make things efficient. Remember--there are some people who sell a LOT on eBay, and there are even companies whose sole purpose in life is to sell things that way. However, eBay has been implementing and increasing number of features in the past couple of years. Now, suddenly, they offer image hosting, with each image after the first costing some fee. And more recently, they have acquired PayPal, to support folks' payment requirements. My question is, will eBay remain the "open" system that it is today, giving you the choice of using whatever systems you want to get the job done, or will eBay become a closed system where auctions cost a lot more to place because you have to pay for every feature?

    All in all, I think eBay is a really good system. I hope it stays that way, and doesn't turn to poop because some corporate jerk wants to be greedy.