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eBay Bans Google Payments
whoever57 writes "eBay has added Google Checkout to the list of payment options banned on eBay. A recent update to the Accepted Payments Policy includes Google Checkout (click on 'Show' next to 'Some Examples' to reveal the list).
More comments on this action can be found at the eBay Strategies Blog."
Why sue them when they can probably implement auctions.google.com in much less time. I am pretty sure google could implement a much better auction setup than eBay, and the kicker? They won't ban you from using paypal.
You know, it seems more often then not, when I search Google for a product, I sure get a lot of Ebay auction listings in the search results. I would imagine this brings many people into the Ebay auction scene when they otherwise would not have considered bidding instead of buying. Many, MANY people, I bet.
Perhaps Google should consider removing all ebay auctions from their search results? I'm sure the same phony logic that prohibits Google payments from ebay auctions could be used to remove auctions from search results, such as:
"Ebay auctions are not categorically safe transactions, so as a safety precaution, we are eliminating ebay auctions from our search results. Please consider purchasing your new from the following vendors who have an established track record. And coincidentally, these vendors accept payments with Google Payments."
Let's see who needs who then, ebay...
First off, I'm totally close to this business - and this was an anticipated move, predicted it almost 2 years ago now. eBay needs to protect their business for the upcoming storm. I fully expect eBay to be remembered in a few years similarly to the Modem (remember those?) .. yeah people still use 'em, but most everybody's got a broadband connection.
Google isn't going to release auctions, auctions are so 2001. NOBODY WANTS TO BID. The stuff you bid on is used crap, and honestly even then it falls into the "Working crap" and "broke crap". eBay is transitioning to a fixed price marketplace, so is Google. (Don't believe me, check out eBay express)
It doesn't matter where you buy online -- the price battles online are over, they were over last year, price differentials are minimal. If anything eBay sellers are at a disadvantage due to all the fees they incurr and the higher overhead from the resulting support cost. The next frontier is mobile commerce, or perhaps more appropriately "local commerce" -- which is where Google is clearly headed. All the analysts seem to miss that Google has a really clear 3 year plan, and it's pretty freaking awesome - here's how it goes:
1. Online prices are too similar, they are irrelvant.
2. Who has a product closest to me, and is reliable, lets buy it from them.
3. Will Google allow a local retailer to match "best price", or perhaps even come close -- you betcha.
Within two years -- i'll be able to buy an 19" LCD monitor for $99 from GoogleBase, after it negotiates the best price for me, then tells me to go pick it up at the local circuit city or fry's, where I pay via Google Payments when I arrive to pick it up (probably via my phone). Yupe, it's right around the corner.
The store will try to upsell me on other items while i'm there.
Google will get a cut of the entire sale, in exchange they'll be more likely to send more buyers to that store. The stores that do the poorest job upselling, will see less buyers (think Adwords).
And don't forget:
1) Ebay isn't an auction site.
and
2) Paypal isn't a bank.
Quite ironically, being a heavily-regulated bank gets you out of antitrust troubles. The theory is that there are specialized state and federal agencies taking care of the banks, so the antitrust laws should not have a big role regulating banks. The fact that eBay and PayPal can do whatever they want hurts them in the antitrust sphere. Furthermore, Ebay and PayPal are vertical: Ebay is a dominant auction site and they use PayPal for payment services. Thus, eBay is using its dominance of its field to exert market power into another field on a basis other than merit. That's pretty much an antitrust violation right there. It's doubtful eBay can come back with a reasonable, non-malicious explanation for not accepting GCheckout. Oops.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
The purpose of monopoly laws is not to crush an organisation so it never trades again. It's to stop them from illegally protecting a monopoly.
Where's IBM's monopoly? It seems to have worked in that case.
Obviously it did exactly nothing in the Microsoft case, but I don't think you can use IBM as an example of the system failing.
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