eBay Pulls Google Ads Over Marketing Stunt

odoketa writes "According to the BBC, it seems Google scheduled a party to promote their payment system (Google Checkout) on the same day as a big eBay meeting, and this made eBay mad enough to pull their ads with Google. According to the story, eBay says it's merely an 'ongoing experiment' on their marketing. 'Google hoped to alert PayPal users who would have been in Boston attending the eBay Live annual seller event to its own service, according to market experts. It could also have been seen as part of an effort to get eBay to accept Google Checkout, currently banned on the online auctioneer's site. But in a contrite manner, Google cancelled its rival function a day before it was due to happen.'"

Comments

UK promo was good

[Linker3000]

In the UK, Google checkout was offering £10 off any order over £30 with a major online IT supplier I use. The number of small orders I placed last month for toners and other parts was quite exceptional!

Re:UK promo was good

[KingJ]

I took advantage of this too, in effect it gave me free delivery. Certainly swayed me to use their payment system and it's a year long promotion, I wonder what the fees are that google charges retailers in comparison to ordinary card processing services?

Re:UK promo was good

[daeg]

We use Google Checkout. Under their promotions, retailers have it good for the start, too. The ending rates are great, too, much better than PayPal. The Terms of Service are much more agreeable to both the buyer and seller, particularly for physical goods. I'm not sure how they compare to digital goods, but PayPal isn't very good on that front, either.

Re:UK promo was good

[DrogMan]

The promo was/is good and I was about to sign up to Google Checkout to accept smallish payments on a system I'm working on, but was really put off by the fact that Google insist on the person making the payment sign up to a Google account. PayPal dropped this a long time ago, and much as I dislike PayPal, at least now you have the choice to letting your clients make their own decision to signing up to PayPal, or not.

Once Google removes this restriction, I'll probably use them to accept small payments rather than use PayPal.

/DM/

Re:UK promo was good

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Not to mention that eBay loves double-dipping - charge ya for auction closing fees and then PayPal fees.

Re:UK promo was good

[bkr1_2k]

Hopefully you've let google know that. Otherwise it's just wishful thinking.

Re:UK promo was good

[rainman_bc]

Did you think that fees would have come down after eBay bought paypal? Really, wake me up when you return from Neverland :)

Re:UK promo was good

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Heh, heck no. Just venting, is all ;)
Still, eBay has incredible allure due to the huge number of clueless buyers and sellers there.

Re:UK promo was good

[drinkypoo]

Hopefully you've let google know that. Otherwise it's just wishful thinking.

You act like the people at google are stupid. They are not. At least, not all of them. They are smart enough to compare successful services to unsuccessful ones and examine the differences.

Re:UK promo was good

[bkr1_2k]

I knew someone was going to say that as soon as I posted. I decided not to bother posting to correct my statement though.

Of course google would have figured it out eventually, it's not anything particularly insightful for them to do. However, the sooner the customers make comments, the sooner google (or any company) will react. If it looks like there's an obviously high demand from the onset, then it will be implemented sooner.

Re:UK promo was good

[aevans]

Think how many buyers and sellers has. It has practically all of the ebay clients, plus every other web site they crawl. If good searches returning correct results to sellers gives them a cut of every transaction, you'll see search improve drastically.

Re:UK promo was good

[More_Cowbell]

I just bought a vacuum online from one company and a laptop from another. I guarantee signing up for my Google account was a lot easier than the forms I used for either of those companies.

Who cares if you need to sign up? It's not like you need to use Gmail after if you don't want to.

Excellent news!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure many people will appreciate not seeing the spammed ebay links for just about everything you search for. "HDTV", no problem, ebay will spam the top of google with TVs. Death in Iraq, yes, ebay too has a fine stock of Grim Reaper overstock. Come and get it while it's hot, limited stocks, hurry hurry hurry!

Wrong...

[djupedal]

You're seeing eBay guides, pages.ebay.com and/or pulling from either a local or ISP cache.

I tried yesterday, and again just now and nada. No eBay seller item links on the radar. No items being sold, including bowling balls.

Re:wrong

[EveryNickIsTaken]

From TFA:

But in a contrite manner, Google cancelled its rival function a day before it was due to happen and stated on its blog: "After speaking with officials at eBay, we at Google agreed it was better for us not to feature this event during the eBay Live conference." They cancelled their "party."

Re:Fine with me

[Aladrin]

I would be more interested in EBay results on Google's search if they actually HAD those results. Any time I've ever been looking to buy something, and saw an EBay ad on Google, it got no results when I clicked, despite the fact that the item WAS on EBay.

Admittedly, I never search for simple things like 'bowling ball', but rather the exact item I want, but still... The ads were always pointless when I would want them, and useless when I didn't.

eBay wouldn't do that

[91degrees]

They don't advertise on Google to do Google a favour. They advertise on Google to draw traffic to eBay. If they pull their advertising, they hurt themselves. Not as much as they hurt Google, because they can easily spend the advertising budget elsewhere, but still a case of cutting of their nose to spite their faces.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[Rik Sweeney]

They advertise on Google to draw traffic to eBay

Precisely! Otherwise, how would I know that I can find sinusitis relief on eBay?

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[Applekid]

Is eBay not a big enough player to require Google advertising?

This got me thinking of advertising in general. Do consumers REALLY need another 5,000 Coke commericals nationwide today, too? Are they afraid that we'll all of a sudden forget they exist? Afraid that people who like Coke would switch to Pepsi thanks to those ads so we'd better innundate them with our ads to keep that from happening?

There are defining sites out there on the internet. You wouldn't google for online auctions unless you're looking for an eBay alternative. You wouldn't goggle for user shared video sites unless you're looking for a YouTube alternative.

Or, at least I wouldn't. :)

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[john_is_war]

The coke/pepsi advertisement thing... sounds very familiar. You been listening to Lewis Black, haven't you?

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[xappax]

Do consumers REALLY need another 5,000 Coke commericals nationwide today, too? Are they afraid that we'll all of a sudden forget they exist?

It's a good question, it seems intuitive that those brands are so deeply entrenched in our collective awareness and habits that they've sort of transcended advertising. It seems like we could never see another ad for Nike, and we'd still remember them and buy their shoes just as much.

But it's not true. The reason we can tell it's not true is that companies like Nike universally continue to spend gobs upon gobs of money on advertising campaigns, which they could've otherwise kept in their pockets. I think the main reason mega-brands advertise is not because they're afraid we'll forget, but because they're afraid we'll start paying attention (or more attention) to their competitors, or even other industries we'd rather spend our money on. Nike doesn't care if we remember them in general, they care if they're the top brand on our minds when we walk into the shoe store, and that we associate them with all the cool things of today.

In this way, advertising is like an arms race. You may have enough advertising to let people know about your product, but another advertiser is just going to step up their campaign and draw even more attention to themselves (and consequently away from you). Keeping the attention on your brand is what keeps you alive as a corporation, so you have no choice but to increase your advertising campaign to even more intensity...they respond in kind, and the cycle continues.

Of course, the result of this marketing cold war is what we have today: an almost completely ad saturated environment. It's difficult to look anywhere in an urban environment without seeing a logo or advertisement - it's so universal that people start to tune it out as background noise, which simply means advertisers must come up with newer, more subtle or outrageous or manipulative ways of increasing their brand awareness and appeal.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[LiENUS]

Ebay advertises under much more than just "online auctions" they had an advertisement for virtually any item you could buy, so if you searched for "silly hats" looking for an online retailer of silly hats, you'd seen an advertisement for silly hats on ebay and then you might decide to purchase them on idea in the hopes of getting a good deal rather than an online retailer.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[Anonymous Coward]

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[loourker]

As any marketing expert at Google or eBay or Coke can tell you, half of anyone's marketing budget is wasted. The trouble is figuring out which half.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[Aladrin]

This is probably the most profound and sensible thing said so far. (It's probably a quote, but just roll with me here.)

Advertising is amazingly hard to quantify. How do you -know- if someone bought that item because of advertising, or because they just saw it in the store. Did your advertisement in Magazine X bring in any sales? Was it the TV commercials? Was it the fact that you advertised in 6 different ways? Could you have eliminated one of them with the exact same results, or even better results? Could you have added another?

It would be easy to spend more money trying to determine how successful your ads were than the actual ads cost.

The only thing that could make pulling Google ads worthwhile would be to make a big stink about it on 'moral' grounds and get the news media to advertise for you for a while. Getting Google to cancel their event was a great bonus.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[tsalaroth]

You wouldn't goggle for user shared video sites unless you're looking for a YouTube alternative. Using "goggle" is bad for your PC's health, if you're running windows.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[Anonymous Coward]

they don't advertise ebay.com. but when people search for products on google, they get links to those products on ebay... quite regularly.

and yes, consumers need 5000 coke commercials. if all of a sudden they disappear, and only pepsi commercials are left, people will think of pepsi more often and coke will slowly lose its share. the marketing concept here is actually pretty simple.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[Jellybob]

That's one of the biggest advantages I see with AdWords. I work for a company where we have clients spending over £1000 per day on them, and the reason for that is the reporting tools you get.

You're able to see exactly which ad campaigns are bringing people to your website, and with a little bit of work you can even follow them right through to find out which ones are actually leading to a purchase, or whatever the desired outcome is (we have targets setup for actual online purchases, contact form fill outs, and brochure requests). Using the reporting tools you can see the value of each advert, in terms of how much money it's making you.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[Anonymous Coward]

New users join the interweb every day. Unless word of mouth advertising for your service is extremely strong you need regular advertising to let those new users know what your are offering. Even if eBay already has a large userbase they still need to grow it constantly to satisfy shareholders.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Erm, yeah, I suppose it could be a advertising war. But in Nike's case, they're always making new products. Of course they're going to advertise those, despite their brand power.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[whoop]

What I don't understand are the generic adds for things like milk, pork, beef, etc. Is someone watching and saying, "Hmm, this beef stuff looks like it might be tasty. Let's go get some."

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[Zabu]

According to Google eBay is the only place online to find conflict diamonds.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[QuoteMstr]

Hey. We do the same thing at my place, but with a little bit of a twist.

If somebody comes in through google for visit A, then two weeks later, comes back directly to the site for visit B and buys something,we attribute that sale to A. We figure that somebody found out about the site through google on visit A, so we can attribute the sale to the corresponding adwords campaign. There are advantages to building your own reporting tools. :-)

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[chrisd]

You're thinking David Cross. He has a funny bit about McDonalds. "I don't think that people will suddently worry where they're going to get their big mac if you skip a day," and then launches into a polemic about paying thier workers slightly better.

David Cross is funny :-)

Although it seems the kind of joke that you'd hear other places, too.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[Aladrin]

That's great, if you're only advertising through the web and only with AdWords.

What if you're using 6 other web-based advertising companies as well as TV, radio, and newspaper? How do you know the person didn't forget your URL and search Google for you, then click on one of the paid ads instead of a search result? Or search result that was related to what you do, and see your ad there? Google didn't actually provide the initial consumer demand, they were just a means to find you afterwards.

The thing is, you don't -know- what happened, any more than we ever did. Educated guesses are great, but they're still just guesses and not facts.

The sibling post makes a good point about return visits as well, but I don't know how they're tracking the visit. Cookies could be cleared or on a public computer, IP addresses often change, I doubt they managed to get the person to sign up for an account the first time, but it's possible... Too many variables. His complex reporting system has managed to further refine the data, but not make it perfectly clear.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[rainman_bc]

If they pull their advertising, they hurt themselves eBay is as much a household name as google is. Unlikely either will be hurt by it except Google will see a few less eBay dollars.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[Anonymous Coward]

The absolute worst is the ads for power. I mean, we don't even have a choice there. What benefit do they get from advertising? Do they think if they spend more on advertising, we'll start using more electricity? I guess they are hoping that they can get commercials on TV to be longer by spending lots of money on advertising so you'll have to have your TV on longer to watch a show, so they make more money off the electricity?

I also don't get the constant advertising for BASIC cable on cable TV. Over here, the ads are intelligent even... while I'm watching TV on my digital cable, while the ad is on, a bar pops up on the bottom of the screen saying "Press A on your digital remote to order BASIC CABLE!"

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[rainman_bc]

which simply means advertisers must come up with newer, more subtle or outrageous or manipulative ways of increasing their brand awareness and appeal. Great post! I want you to run the marketing department in our office ;)

Thing is though, the outrageous stuff is what gets me. This morning I was watching the morning news, and from the traffic chopper out comes a freaking ad from the traffic lady's mouth. How can the morning news not think that this just annoys viewers, and that most of us are intelligent enough to look past that garbage?

I don't choose what beverage I drink from what's on TV. I've never seen an ad for Orangina on TV and that's my favourite beverage. I pick a restaurant based on reviews online at dinehere.ca (I'm from Vancouver so it makes sense). I refuse to buy Nike because honestly they are way overpriced for the value you get. If I am an athlete where the extra spring in my step makes a difference, I'll let Nike put there shoes on me for free. Until them, Umbro or Adidas or Puma is fine for me and I'll keep the other $150 in my pocket thanks. I don't pick my beer based on how slutty looking the models on TV are. I like Hoegarden and Amstel myself, and don't see much ads for those.

I've sat in on marketing conversations at the place I work, and they truly seem to believe that end users are easily manipulated. I think marketers have beliefs about consumers that just aren't true any more.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[91degrees]

Surely pulling hteir ads is going to cost them something, otherwise why don't they just pull their ads and save money?

I imagine a lot of people haven't linked eBay with buying absolutely everything. It might not be the first place they think of when searching for an XBox, for example.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[nicklott]

I no longer know where to get my new and used Eigen Vectors!

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[Anonymous Coward]

"This got me thinking of advertising in general. Do consumers REALLY need another 5,000 Coke commericals nationwide today, too? "

use that argument, replace Coke with Snapple. how's altavista doing these days? or any other number of real or Internet service based products that have dropped off the face of the earth.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[Anonymous Coward]

I think what you're missing is that for every one of you there are 100 sheeple waiting to be told what is cool.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[hxnwix]

It's a good question, it seems intuitive that those brands are so deeply entrenched in our collective awareness and habits that they've sort of transcended advertising. It seems like we could never see another ad for Nike, and we'd still remember them and buy their shoes just as much.

But it's not true. The reason we can tell it's not true is that companies like Nike universally continue to spend gobs upon gobs of money on advertising campaigns FYI, your conclusion is your thesis. What if the actors here are following this reasoning? They'd have to be sure of themselves out of hubris, yes, but remember that these are the sort of folks who thought New Coke and Crystal Pepsi were good ideas.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[bkr1_2k]

No we don't need 5000 more Coke commercials to remember Coke.

For the big guys, advertisement isn't so much about knowing the product but let me ask you, do you remember growing up and asking for a "coke" to mean any soda? These days people ask for a soda by name but when I was a kid you asked for a Coke and got whatever was available. Obviously there is some distinction that Coke doesn't want you to forget there.

Advertisement isn't just about keeping customers, it's also about getting new ones and indoctrinating them. The "teach the world to sing" campaign was so successful for Coke the first time around that they brought it back. Not only did it remind a whole generation of their own childhood (like me) but it brought the next generation (my daughter) around to singing the same damn song. "Have a Coke and a Smile" while we take your money to the bank.

Sure eBay is big enough to not require Google for advertising, but if they have Google advertising then they'll reach that many more people, and people they've already reached will think of eBay for things that wouldn't have considered before. I started using eBay for computer crap shortly after they started auctions. I would have never considered it for new stuff, just older things. Now I use it for all sorts of things, new and used.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[recharged95]

"The reason we can tell it's not true is that companies like Nike universally continue to spend gobs upon gobs of money on advertising campaigns,"

Cause wealthy ad-producers and execs still need jobs. Is it a necessity to have all this additional advertising? Likely not. Madison avenue cares only for one's deep pocket, not an industry nor cause.

It's now somewhat refreshing to look at a sparse results page. And still goto ebay to bid on things.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[1937redskins]

Think how many substitutes there are "generic" classes of products. The beef guys want you to choose beef over all other available foods. These are industry groups whose mission is to increase overall market share. There is a big difference between market ads and brand ads.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[Rakishi]

because they can easily spend the advertising budget elsewhere Except that the reason they spend it at google is because the return on their investment was deemed to be the highest possible. Otherwise they'd be spending the money elsewhere which they aren't so I doubt there is much of a good "elsewhere" left (that they don't already advertise with).

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[Rakishi]

no, they will be hurt and as the other poster said there is a reason they advertise on google. Sure you know what ebay is but lets say you are interested in a doohicky. Now you google this device for some reason likely. suddenly you see an ad for ebay, you hadn't even thought of buying it on ebay for whatever reason but right there is an ad. So you click it to see the prices on ebay for the device and possibly buy it on ebay.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[fossa]

Yet Nike, or all advertisers in agregate, have convinced you that various shoe technologies are necessary. Sure you might not pay the premium for Nike, but you're still buying into the "shoe needed for sport" mindset which is nine-tenths of Nike's job. I'm guilty of the same thing in many areas of life, e.g. "car needed for getting around", "must keep up with the Joneses", and probably many others I'm not even aware of. But I do run barefoot.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[evilviper]

Do consumers REALLY need another 5,000 Coke commericals nationwide today, too? Are they afraid that we'll all of a sudden forget they exist? Afraid that people who like Coke would switch to Pepsi thanks to those ads so we'd better innundate them with our ads to keep that from happening?

Interesting choice of hypothetical scenarios, because that's EXACTLY what, in-fact, happened.

Go read about "New Coke." It was Pepsi's overwhelming success in advertising their product that led to Coke's downfall.

Brand advertising isn't about telling you that a product (you might want/need) exists... It's about making you want to have their product more than their competitors. When was the last time you saw a commercial for Coke or Pepsi that mentioned price or "benefits" of one over the other?

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[Dhalka226]

Advertising is amazingly hard to quantify. How do you -know- if someone bought that item because of advertising, or because they just saw it in the store.

Well, there are absolutely people who look into those sorts of things. Besides which, it's probably enough to do some statistics with it; if I'm selling 1,000,000 units a day on average, I run a new ad campaign and all of the sudden I'm doing 1,250,000 units a day, the two probably aren't related.

But there are three points to make about advertising in general, rather than about the effectiveness of specific ad campaigns:

1. They do work to some degree. There's no denying it. I'm sure we've all had moments where we see something on TV, decide "that looks good" or "that looks cool" and go buy it. Even if we don't rush out to buy it specifically, if I see, for example, a new commercial for a drink that sounds really good I may well forget about it but then see it in the store and buy it. I don't think anybody denies this point.

2. You have to do what your competition is doing. A few posts up somebody asked if we really need 5,000 Coke commercials to prevent us from forgetting about it. No, we don't. However if they don't run ads but Pepsi does, it will undoubtedly bite into their sales--so they run them. Pepsi does the same thing.

3. And here comes the potentially controversial one... there is a theory that advertising, as a whole, isn't about the products they pitch. Advertising is about making you feel like whatever you have, it isn't enough. It wants to make you feel like things are missing. Most every commercial has attractive people in it even if they're completely unrelated to the product; it's not so much about "drink Coke and hot women will fawn over you!" as much as it is about making you feel like something is missing and maybe you can buy it. It doesn't necessarily help Coke that you feel like something is missing, but if that feeling gets you to go out shopping that's a win for all companies running ads.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[Aladrin]

As I noted in the past, if you've only advertised through 1 venue, it's pretty easy to tell if it's working or not. But if you're doing other advertising, or you've done advertising in the past, the waters muddy a bit. If you have have a dozen ways you are advertising or have advertised, it's very very hard to tell how effective each one is.

1) Absolutely. There are many products I would never have bought, or tried anything like, if I hadn't seen a commercial.

2) Yup. I disagree about the 'forgetting', though. I've often seen a commercial and thought 'Wow, it's been a while since I had one of those. Time for one.' The tons of ads -do- serve the purpose they appear to, as well as others that are less clear.

3) Not sure that I agree. If I see an ugly women drinking Coke in a commercial, I always think 'WTF. They couldn't do better than that?' If I see a pretty woman, I think it's just the norm for advertising, and possibly remember the commercial because of the awesome babe. (This goes double for underwear commercials, despite the fact that I don't wear women's underwear.) There's been a HUGE upsurge in commercials that use 'ordinary' people... And every time I see one, I think 'man, dorks use that product.' Some even go out of their way to prove how monumentally stupid the person is before plugging the product. Does that really WORK? It just turns me away instantly.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[Guppy06]

Really? I keep finding people trying to sell me CD-ROMs with information on sinusitis relief wholesalers.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[rtb61]

Now. remind me again why I use this tool http://www.customizegoogle.com/ and have filtered out ebay from all my search results.

Re:eBay wouldn't do that

[giantsfan89]

I saw a software package this guy wrote which pulled video from sporting events and did some algorithm image OCR-like stuff on the video feed. Then he could chart how many times a sponsor's logo was showed, for how long. Not only did they do that for the live event, but they could also do that for replays, for instance on SportsCenter. This gives advertisers an idea about how much TV time they're getting for their advertising dollar.

It's hard to know exactly what method of advertising hooks in a consumer (especially on a product like soda). But software like this can help regulate the price-per-view of advertising.

Now we will see who has more behind them

[Stu101]

Now we may see no less than a battle between two MAJOR internet players. It will get v dirty v quick. Basically I predict a last man standing type scenario.

It was only a matter of time before someone pulled the trigger because you cant have two major companies, with 2 sets of shareholders co-existing for very long. One will inevitably get greedy.

Re:Now we will see who has more behind them

[Threni]

> Basically I predict a last man standing type scenario.

We'll see how many people dislike eBay and PayPal. I've closed my paypal account because they've become a bank and moved to a EU rather than UK system and were apparently incapable of answering my questions about it. Still, I bet the people they're paying to answer questions are really cheap so that's saving them money.

I hope Google comes up with an auction site. Perhaps they'll take abuse more seriously than eBay does, too.

Re:Now we will see who has more behind them

[Anonymous Coward]

I've closed my paypal account because they've become a bank and moved to a EU rather than UK system..

1. Although it's high time PayPal were regulated as a bank, their move will not make them one any more than they are currently.
2. The UK is in the EU and has been for a very long time, making the second half of your sentence non-sensical.

Re:Now we will see who has more behind them

[Anonymous Coward]

> The UK is in the EU and has been for a very long time, making the second half of your sentence non-sensical.

Only if you lack the sense to understand that a bank based in another part of Europe no longer operates under the regulations of the UK, such as the FSA (Financial Services Authority).

Re:Now we will see who has more behind them

[eharvill]

The UK is in the EU and has been for a very long time, making the second half of your sentence non-sensical. Last time I was in England they were still using the Pound. Although they are a member of the EU, they haven't adopted all of their policies it seems. *shrug*

Re:Now we will see who has more behind them

[dangitman]

It was only a matter of time before someone pulled the trigger because you cant have two major companies, with 2 sets of shareholders co-existing for very long.

So, it's only possible to have one major company in the whole world??

Paypal useless

[hesaigo999ca]

I am soooooo glad that eBay will now have competition from on of the top dogs for their
paypal excuse for a payment system. I hope google can actually tie this into your gmail account with higher security, although if eBay will not use this service, I dont know where else except the p0rn
sites where this might be usefull?

Ebay Thailand

[yohanes]

Strange, right now, ebay.co.th is still showing as Adwords ads in Google search.

Re:Ebay Thailand

[MichaelSmith]

Strange, right now, ebay.co.th is still showing as Adwords ads in Google search.

TFA:

Auction website eBay has pulled its US advertising from search engine giant and adversary Google.

Message To Ebay: This Is Suicide

[osewa77]

Knowing how much traffic Google drives through search and Adwords, this move by Ebay is nothing but suicide. It's a good thing - for Ebay - that Google has decided to back down.

Ebay is in a bad position, really, because they don't drive their own traffic. If Google decides to launch an auction website, it'd be a real bloodbath, because Ebay is nothing without it's famously massive traffic, much of with it has to buy.

I suspect that they have an agreement with Google that prevents Google from implementing a simple competitor in the auction space.

What happens if Ebay boycotts Google? We'll get less "buy used baby's from Ebay" spam. That's it.

Re:Message To Ebay: This Is Suicide

[AutopsyReport]

It's not suicide. Most Internet users have been to eBay. eBay was successful long before Google showed up and they will continue to be successful because their success is attached to the name, how easy it is to remember, and how quickly you can type "ebay.com" in the location bar without having to go through a search engine.

Re:Message To Ebay: This Is Suicide

[MontyApollo]

Ebay has TV and radio commercials. They were a successful, house-hold name before Google even became popular. It's like saying it would be suicide for Coke to pull advertising from Google.

Re:Message To Ebay: This Is Suicide

[winnabago]

I don't have a source, but it is interesting that ebay still feels the need to tout their own payment systems in real life. About a month ago in Boston, they started putting PayPal ads on the tops of taxis, in bus shelters, and such places. Now that this Google Checkout issue has come out, it makes sense. They saw the pressure from Google coming.

I don't think ebay feels that Paypal can run via its own momentum, with others trying to gain share in that market.

Re:Message To Ebay: This Is Suicide

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think this is in reference to ebay pulling the keyword 'auction'. I'm aware of ebay.com, but when I do a search for "Great Rock and Roll Swindle Movie Poster" in Google, if the stars (keywords) are in alignment, I'll get a link reminding me that ebay would be a good place to find that item. I like to think I'm fairly Internet saavy, but more often than not these smart ads drive me in the right direction. An ebay (or paypal) flashing banner at the top of every single page I surf would do none of this.

Re:Message To Ebay: This Is Suicide

[Anonymous Coward]

No ... this is ... eBaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

Re:Message To Ebay: This Is Suicide

[Anonymous Coward]

Most internet users? The number of users on the internet is not a static number. It is growing constantly with new users and this growth is very fast and not linear. If eBay stopped advertising today eventually the number of Internet users who had never heard of eBay would vastly outnumber those users who had visited the site. Also it is not enough for a publically traded company to merely be successful, these companies also have an obligation to show constant growth of revenue.

Re:Message To Ebay: This Is Suicide

[WickedStick]

They both went public in 1998 so I wouldn't say they were successful for very long before Google. Google was much more successful right from the start anyways.

Re:Message To Ebay: This Is Suicide

[Chelloveck]

What happens if Ebay boycotts Google? We'll get less "buy used baby's from Ebay" spam. That's it.

Wait! Where else am I going to buy my used babies and dead whores? Curse you, Google!

Re:Message To Ebay: This Is Suicide

[bkr1_2k]

They more likely started putting those ads in preparation for their "eBay Live 2007" event, which is what all the big fuss is about. They're mad because Google planned an event to deliberately conflict with that event. By the way, it's held in Boston this year.

Re:Message To Ebay: This Is Suicide

[winnabago]

I should have been more clear - in hindsight, they knew both the hordes of ebay maniacs and Google were coming to Boston, so in some strange move they take out the Paypal ads. But why not put ebay ads on the signs? You could say that they were trying to get at the thousands of out of town ebayers on the bus system (that I've seen starting yesterday anyway).

Ebay is a recognized brand, paypal is a recognized evil.

Re:Message To Ebay: This Is Suicide

[tknd]

Ebay is in a bad position, really, because they don't drive their own traffic.

Hmm, let's see. Go talk to anybody that has used the internet, ask them about selling and buying stuff online and there's a pretty good chance the verb ebay will come up. That's right, people don't always say, auction/sell it online, instead they just say, ebay it. Because of that, ebay, at least in the U.S. is the most common online auction site and probably gets direct hits all the time.

If Google decides to launch an auction website, it'd be a real bloodbath, because Ebay is nothing without it's famously massive traffic, much of with it has to buy.

This is another easy one. There was this great idea about putting video content on the internet inside of a website. You know, you go to a website and you can view a large selection of videos! Well, there was once youtube and google video. Youtube, even though was not necessarily superior in technical terms, was the leader in traffic even against google's own video site! So if Google was so powerful/smart that it could make a superior product/service, why didn't Youtube fold to Google video?

The answer is: not everyone uses Google's services. In fact, Google isn't a success because of the services it provides alone, it is a success because of its advertising business. I know several people that like to use Yahoo more than Google not only for searches but also email. I'm sure Google's services do drive a large portion of it's advertising business but when you as a publisher look for competitors to adwords, there's no comparison. There are many competitors but their technology in advertising and their market reach is nothing compared to Google.

Google has it great right now because many people perceive it as a search engine company when really it is an advertising company. This helps their image quite a bit because people don't know that google is the online advertising giant. Instead, everyone associates google with a search engine because of the phrase "google it."

Re:Message To Ebay: This Is Suicide

[Anonymous Coward]

Google went public in 2004.

Re:Message To Ebay: This Is Suicide

[osewa77]

Google's search engine is what gives them lots of traffic. Not just traffic, but traffic whose desires are known. I think search is central to their business, although of course web advertising IS their business. The problem Ebay has with respect to Google is that Google can capture Ebay's potential customers before they have the chance to visit ebay.com. Google can capture them while they are doing their research, which is when they usually clicked those Ebay ads anyway.

Paypal and Checkout

[kanwisch]

I ditched Paypal when I couldn't reject a credit card payment (I didn't accept them). Assuming Checkout doesn't have the same issue, it'll be my preferred method of payment/receipt for the long-haul.

Re:Paypal and Checkout

[ssstraub]

You should have read the eBay rules before accepting Paypal. It strictly states that you CANNOT accept Paypal without also accepting credit card payments through it. If you attempt to make this statement in your auction, the auction can get cancelled on those grounds if eBay notices or someone complains.

Re:Paypal and Checkout

[kanwisch]

Perhaps true now but not when I originally setup the Paypal account, which was before Ebay owned them.

Ebay/Google

[Mockylock]

I would think that EBay was independent enough for people to know the name and use them without the use of Google or any other advertisement (aside from television). I think that once you're at a certain level, it's all top-of-mind-awareness, wouldn't you think?

Needless to say, I think they're probably making the right decision by ending whatever advertisement relationship they hold with them. It's only going to save them money and look better on paper.

Re:Ebay/Google

[AutopsyReport]

I would think that EBay was independent enough for people to know the name and use them without the use of Google or any other advertisement (aside from television).

Exactly. eBay is like Google; you don't go to Yahoo to find Google, and so you don't go to Google to find eBay. This was a calculated decision, not necessarily a bad one. If people believe it was a suicidal decision, recall the numerous fee increases that caused the community to throw up their arms in revolt. You would think that was suicidal, but eBay is still just as strong.

Re:Ebay/Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually 20984222 people a month use Yahoo to find Google.

I PRAY Google takes eBay down at some point.

[Mewtwo]

...and this is coming from someone who does fairly significant business through eBay.

eBay's fees are ridiculous now, and PayPal even moreso. eBay has continually raised their fees year after year, taking a far too large cut of small items. What's worse is that 2.9% + 30 cents bit on PayPal transactions, whether or not it was actually funded through a credit card. I understand needing to pay yourself back should someone actually pay with a credit card and get small fee on top of that, but when money is moved from one PP account to another, that costs them $0...not to mention that PayPal's fee is done on the TOTAL, not the pre-shipping price, so they end up taking 2.9% of the money that you're supposed to have to ship the item as well. ...and since eBay and PayPal are so closely knit, and almost everyone on eBay only uses PayPal to pay, trying to use any of the smaller players is pretty much futile. The only payment service that can reasonably knock PayPal off of its pedestal is Google Checkout, and eBay knows this.

Between those two things, I'm losing well over 10% on any item that doesn't cost a huge amount of money. They wonder why people do stuff like use eBay contact info to sell outside of eBay and to list $1 items with hundred or even thousand-dollar shipping cost to avoid paying eBay as much as they can.

eBay claims that they want to have payment services with established track records or something like that. Just wait a year or two, and then possibly sue for inclusion, or at least under some law about anti-competitive acts? If Google could get GBay up...

GBay + "do no evil" = death of eBay.

Re:I PRAY Google takes eBay down at some point.

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't GBay Gotham City's black market online auction site?

Re:I PRAY Google takes eBay down at some point.

[LynnwoodRooster]

As someone who had a business that accepted CCs (we had the contract with a CC processor, terminal, could swipe cards) the fees charged by Paypal are actually in line with real CC charges. Around 2.4% of total sale (don't break out shipping - total amount) and $0.30 per transaction. Processing of CC charges ranged from 1.8% to 3.3% depending upon the volume of sales you did (we did around $30K/month and were at the 2.4% price range).

EBay's fees are quite high, though, and I don't have any experience with Paypal's CS so can't comment there, but the fees they're charging seem to be somewhat in line with meatspace...

Re:I PRAY Google takes eBay down at some point.

[whoop]

I didn't understand why people charged $10-20 to ship an item like a video game, until I started unloading my dusty collection. By the time you figure in shipping, ebay, paypal fees, you're up in that ballpark.

Re:I PRAY Google takes eBay down at some point.

[Saberwind]

What's worse is that 2.9% + 30 cents bit on PayPal transactions, whether or not it was actually funded through a credit card.

In the US, it's illegal to charge different prices depending on method of payment.

However, it would be nice if they charged everyone 1.5% or whatever the weighted average happens to be.

Re:I PRAY Google takes eBay down at some point.

[LordNimon]

Illegal, or just a violation of the agreement with Visa and Mastercard?

Re:I PRAY Google takes eBay down at some point.

[Mewtwo]

Right -- I understand paying 2.9% + 30 cents when you are paying through a credit card.

However, if you have money sitting in your PayPal account, and that money is being transferred to another account, that IS NOT a credit card transaction, and thus shouldn't be charged anything similar to one.

Re:I PRAY Google takes eBay down at some point.

[Kalriath]

Just a violation of the agreement. No laws cover it.

However, Visa and Mastercard are A-OK with "Discount for every method of payment but credit card, discount already applied to price"

eBay just keeps marginalizing folks...

[DJ_Maiko]

First it was their own users w/their increased pricing plan (the same folks who BUILT their vast empire). Now they're getting all huffy over Google Checkout? It was a "party" for pete's sake (which in their nerdy world means: bad chips & dip, kool-aid, guys wallflower'ing as they discuss Wizards of the Coast while they avoid the girls- /shudder dancing- & 80's pop star Tiffany as "entertainment")!

Goes to show how out-of-touch eBay is becoming w/the masses. They swear they've got the market cornered & anyone trying to infringe upon that will just get summarily blitzkrieg'ed. Sounds like eBay's been taking business classes over at Micro$oft & Tivo'ing all the X-Files reruns from the Sci-Fi channel. When Meg Whitman finally "gets" the fact that Google has WAY more street cred than eBay (& that adopting Google Checkout is a wise business decision), she'll finally do something positive for her shareholders.

So hard to choose sides

[antifoidulus]

I mean, on one side we have google, a tremendously useful tool that has saved me countless hours when troubleshooting problems/doing research.

And on the other side we have paypal who called me a liar on the phone because I told them that they, not I, made a mistake

So hard to choose sides!

Re:So hard to choose sides

[The Breeze]

This is obvious a fake post.

I mean, come on, someone claiming to have actually gotten Paypal on the phone? How likely is that?

"We're Paypal. We don't care. We don't have to."
-apologies to SNL.

Re:So hard to choose sides

[drinkypoo]

I've done it before. It was not a rewarding experience, but you can get them on the phone.

Re:So hard to choose sides

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, on one side we have google, a tremendously useful tool that has saved me countless hours when troubleshooting problems/doing research.

That's exactly what the Chinese government said!

Death of the one trick shop

[Stu101]

Now its down to who blinks first, im guessing that Google either have:

A) An ebay alternative (Killer? )
B) The resources to create one pretty quick.

We will have to see what countermeasures Ebay can conjour up. My guess is not a lot because Ebay, to my mind at least, is a one trick pony.

The BBC is spinning this...

[owlnation]

This is not what it seems. I read this article on the BBC earlier today and it annoyed me then.

Their use of the word "angry" in the headline is preposterous. This is shamefully hyperbolic sensationalist tabloid journalism -- something the BBC is pandering to more and more -- they really need to fire some editors. Also, it seems to me that someone in the Richmond offices of eBay has the ear of someone in the BBC, eBay gets an astonishingly high amount of free publicity from the BBC (The BBC does not allow advertising -- um, yeah, sure...). Again, they really need to fire some editors, I'd be astonished if at least some of them were not taking backhanders every now and again -- it certainly looks that way.

Why would a medium sized corporation be "angry". And particularly in this case, although eBay is the largest user of Adwords, eBay is still a very small company compared to Google. eBay has no alternative to Adwords. It's use them, or fail trying something else.

While I'm personally convinced that eBay's management are far from the sharpest executives out there, they are at least smart enough to realize that they need Google much more than Google needs them. Sure, there's some Corporate game playing around checkout etc, and perhaps this move is simply a reflection of that. eBay, like any firm, needs to try to assert themselves occasionally to negotiate better deals. This is business. This is not news.

If Google was planning their own negative party then perhaps it would be good for someone to examine their mission statement -- while not exactly evil, that action isn't something that would give any company the moral high ground.

This is all a storm in a teacup. The whole thing reeks of publicity stunt. Publicity stunts are things the BBC falls for regularly -- especially where eBay are concerned.

Re:The BBC is spinning this...

[JM78]

Also, it seems to me that someone in the Richmond offices of eBay has the ear of someone in the BBC, eBay gets an astonishingly high amount of free publicity from the BBC (The BBC does not allow advertising -- um, yeah, sure...).

It's not advertising; it's public relations. EBay may have the ear of someone in the BBC but that's how it works - private companies promote through journalism every day by pitching events, press releases and other tidbits. There is a big difference between the two and there's nothing wrong with it.

A story is a story - whether or not it's good journalism is another matter. The BBC, like all news org's is writing headlines to generate readership. It's a business just like any other and it's all about readership so they'll write what will get people talking - positive or negative, it's all about the buzz.

There's nothing wrong with the BBC because of this fact alone - there may be other things wrong with it but I don't buy this individual complaint.

Godwins Law invoked on eBay/Google spat ..

[rs232]

"It's no secret that part of Google's plan for world domination is to replace eBay, which involves selling products via Google Base and paying for them using Google Checkout. However, Google isn't yet powerful enough to launch the expected blitzkrieg, so the two companies maintain friendly relations under what's been compared to the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact signed by Von Ribbentrop for Germany and Stalin"

Who said that amateurism on the Internet was leading to the death of real journalisim ..

Godwins Lawbr>
-- br>
"we both made shells for the Nazis, but mine worked, dammit!", C. Montgomery Burns

Re:Godwins Law invoked on eBay/Google spat ..

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this a troll? It is ridiculous that journalists should treat business practices analogous to war between Russia and Nazi Germany.

Seen it before

[Anonymous Coward]

This was essentially just your average Internet dick-waving contest, except in meatspace.

Fun Experiment

[vigmeister]

I am sure all of you have done this, but notice that when you google for eBay, the first and only ad is for Google Checkout (thinly veiled as an ad from buy.com). While Google does not manipulate search results by hand, they definitely mess with the Ads :))
Cheers!

Re:Fun Experiment

[porkThreeWays]

I just tried this and nothing comes up for ebay... Literally a blank ad pane. I tried other search terms thinking maybe I had some ad-blocking software, but nope. Am I the only one? Perhaps they are freezing the advertising until they get all this worked out?

Re:Fun Experiment

[vigmeister]

It's disappeared from my search results too! Maybe a smart alec decided it was a good idea to do this and then got fired later for lack of good judgment :)
Cheers!

Re:Fun Experiment

[MontyApollo]

I just tried a few times, and I got no adverts at all. The first search result was for ebay.com. (I'm in the US)

Re:Fun Experiment

[MontyApollo]

I waited a few minutes and tried again. I am now getting an eHarmony advert (You can't buy love on Ebay), and I clicked search 5 or 6 times and got this same advert.

It did make wonder what kind of bill these people would run up if everybody on Slashdot clicked-thru their advert.

Hypocrisy? Or just sour grapes?

[WidescreenFreak]

Wait. Let me get this straight. eBay can deny their customers the ability to use alternate payment methods (Western Union, Google Checkout) in an anti-competitive move to try to force people to PayPal, which eBay owns. That's just a-OK. But if Google tries to take advantage of the opportunity to make people aware of Google Payments, which eBay is denying their paying sellers to implement, all hell breaks loose and eBay gets all upset!

Don't get me wrong. I like eBay and PayPal. I've never had a bad experience with either of them. But I found it to be more than coincidental that very shortly after eBay bought PayPal suddenly they have to ban Western Union and other payment services, citing "consumer fraud protection". Oh, f**king spare me!! I used Western Union several times for my auctions with no problems at all. Even eBay's sellers tools will reject the submission of an auction if the words "Western Union" are found in the description!

So, now Google decides to take advantage of an opportunity to make themselves known to eBay customers, and eBay gets all pissed off? Wow.

first and only advert ..

[rs232]

"the first and only ad is for Google Checkout"

Fishtec Fly Fishing
Fishtec - Your Fly Fishing Partner.
Fish Tec - Buy Online Today.
www.Fishtec.co.uk

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=eba y

was Re:Fun Experiment

Re:first and only advert ..

[vigmeister]

The co.uk suggests you are in Britainland? Perhaps this is Google US behaviour...
Cheers!

Screw Ebay, Google needs to start their

[Anonymous Coward]

own auction service. They also need a real estate service. DIY real estate is going to be big.

lots of ex-Microsofties work at Google

[Anonymous Coward]

This move is right out of the Microsoft marketing playbook for upstaging rivals' big announcements and good press. Google as a company is a lot like what Microsoft was 15 years ago. It's interesting that more people haven't noticed this.

Greed Ego and Why Ebay Sucks

[grapeape]

http://news.com.com/Google+cancels+rain+on+eBays+p arade/2100-1024_3-6190905.html goes into much more detail.

You have to love Ebay's comments as to why they dont allow Google Checkout, it reliability is unproven. Which of course translates into we dont get anything out of allowing their service and are much happier double-dipping on our "customers". Their real fear is that people would ditch paypal in droves, which is true, I dont know anyone who really likes paypal but its the only choice you have in dealing with Ebay. Ebay may be surprised to find that accepting other forms of payment would bring people back to ebay. I hated paypal so much after being ripped off for a second time that I just stopped using ebay completely, a better choice of payment options might tempt me back. I did still find myself led to Ebay by google often when searching for specific items.

I'd like to see the real numbers on traffice from google to ebay, I have seen it listed as much as 10% and as little as 2%. Still it looks like this hurts Ebay more than Google, I havent seen any numbers suggesting revenue from Ebay totalling more than 1-2%. If I was Google I'd stick to my guns and not allow them back until checkout was declared acceptable.

Re:Fun Experiment (DOESN'T WORK ANYMORE)

[vigmeister]

The advert is gone.

Someone in Mtn. View reading Slashdot must've fixed it (I'd like to think)

Cheers!

Re:Fine with me

[TheRaven64]

I have print outs of the results for my name and the name of a (now former) cubicle-mate on the wall of my cubicle. Both have eBay adverts for our names. If you click on the link, then it goes to an eBay search page, which says 'no results found.'

I'm amazed Google didn't reject eBay ads for spamming long before eBay decided to pull them. Other Google ads have often been sufficiently relevant that I've actually bothered clicking on them. eBay ads I click on just so it costs them, and they have to pay for the stupidity of putting meaningless adverts up.

Is Ebay mad or just angry?

[icepick72]

mad enough to pull their ads with Google.

If they are "mad" to pull the adds then they have done so possibly error and definitely without the proper thought applied; however if they are "angry" about the situation then it seems like an understandable business move.

But where will I buy my search results now?

[glindsey]

This is horrible! Now, when I search for "software interrupt," I won't see "Looking for software interrupt? Find new and used software interrupt and thousands more items on eBay!"

This is going to make things much more difficult.

BEWARE of Google Checkout

[ArhcAngel]

this may be a little OT but.....
I was recently in the market for a big ticket item and once I found the one I wanted at the price I was willing to pay I began the checkout procedure. I had been seeing the Google Checkout buttons on many of the sites and the allure of getting a little bit more taken off my purchase convinced me to sign up. I mean HAY! this is Google after all so it must be great. I dotted my i's and crossed my t's and completed the purchase. Within minutes I received an email from Google Checkout that my transaction had been denied and that I needed to correct the information and resubmit. Turns out since it was such a large amount Amex flagged the charge and contacted me to confirm I had made it (Kudos to them I say). I authorized the charge and resubmitted it to Google Checkout. I got the same note saying the charge was refused. I called Amex and they informed me the charge was never resubmitted. I tried again with the same results. I tried to contact Google Checkout support only to discover that there is no such thing. If you try hard enough you can find a contact form and fill it out but all I ever got were canned responses about being sorry for the inconvenience. I opened a complaint with the BBB and the only response I got was more of the same canned "We're sorry for the inconvenience" emails with no assistance on fixing the problem. I ended up cancelling the order and going to a brick and mortar to get my item. I expect better from a Google property and I won't be using the service again anytime soon. I've had my problems with PayPal but at least I was able to correspond with some who could actually help me.

Re:BEWARE of Google Checkout

[D-Cypell]

I understand this frustration. I used to work for a company that provided payment services and spent at least some of that time doing customer/technical support.

Our system had a similiar mechanism to google. If a particular card was rejected by the bank, our software would refuse to resubmit the card to the bank for a period of 24 hours. This sounds like an irritating policy I know (and I had to discuss the issue with many people in the same situation as yourself), however what I can tell you is that your case is 1% of the story. The remaining 99% are fraudsters who get hold of a card number and spank that card number against as many merchants as possible hoping it will go through. Often these numbers are posted online so instead of one frauster you get a couple of hundred. The lines that the banks use for CC auths are shockingly obsolete and very low bandwidth so were a finite resource for us, there was thousands of lines of defensive code to limit access to this bandwidth. I did suggest that maybe would should only block after x amount of failures, but the CTO didn't want to know!

What we would generally do is advise any cardholders to contact the merchant they were purchasing from, who had the facility to unblock a card manually.

Its a PITA, I know, and I do think there are ways for processors to make this less of a problem, but just so you understand why...

Re:BEWARE of Google Checkout

[ArhcAngel]

That explains the why of it. It does not however explain the lack of communication with the customer during and long after the problem.

Re:BEWARE of Google Checkout

[cloudmaster]

Did you actually correspond with someone from PayPal who helped you, or are you just presuming that, in the instance you needed help, you could get it by corresponding with them?

I ask because a few months ago I sold a cordless drill on eBay through PayPal. I clearly said that either the battery or charger was dead in the as-is ad, and that I didn't know which one. I also said that I woudn't ship the battery in order to save the recipient shipping costs. When it sold, though, I found that everything fit best in a flat-rate box, which would save the buyer about $1.00. Since the battery also fit (and didn't affect the shipping cost), I threw it in so they could maybe more easily find a replacement.

The buyer filed an "item not as described" complaint when they got it because it didn't work with a new battery they bought. I actually tested the drill and charger beforehand, but didn't mention that because it sounds like a guarantee - but anyway, I know that they worked. And it was clearly (in large bold letters) sold "as-is, untested". So what did PayPal do? They sided with the buyer (who had started sending obscene emails and left offensive feedback).

When I called to ask why PayPal resolved the dispute in the buyer's favor, the person on the phone looked at the auction and said "yeah, it says that it doesn't work in the ad." I asked why again, and she said "You're right, it looks like they didn't look at the ad". Then she said "have a nice day" and hung up. The resolution didn't change.

So, apparently all you have to do is say "item not as described" and PayPal will give you your money back - even if it's exactly as described.

Re:BEWARE of Google Checkout

[ArhcAngel]

I never said they were any good just that they actually existed. I'll still take bad support over non-existent support any day. At least I have somebody to yell at.

oops!
almost forget to give you your
"We are sorry to hear about the trouble you are having. Perhaps if you look at our online FAQ you will find what you need there."

Re:BEWARE of Google Checkout

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that's Rule of Acquisition #1391 that I used to admonish you with for doing business w/ either PP or e-Bay. *sigh* Some kids never learn....

Yes, but now there's more competition

[phorm]

The problem for ebay nowadays is that the competition (google) *will* have ads. As google's checkout becomes more refined, ads may attract more users and attract them away from ebay. If google has a continuous presence, and ebay's diminishes, then ebay may very well start to fade.

About time, too... ebay is not even close to the bargain shop they first were, with sellers abusing the system, fraudsters rollicking around, and ebay cutting in on everyone for as much dime as they can.

Currency exchange

[phorm]

What I've always found fun is how - on top of the fees for the seller etc - paypal is making a nice chunk of change on currency exchange. With the Canadian dollar up at $0.95USD, ebay will still happily only convert cash at $0.915 (for my last transaction). Not only that, but from what I've been able to tell they *require* conversion of funds. I used to use a particular Visa for Paypal specifically because they didn't charge fees for conversion of $USD. Then "Paypal Canada" came up, and suddenly all my funds are converted to Canadian anyways... at a rate that is always lower than the actual exchange.

That's fine if Paypal wants to charge a lessened exchange to cover costs/convenience etc, even most grocery stores do too, but not having the option to have the charge made to my Visa in USD and take advantage of the increasing power of my home currency is a royal pain in the rear end.

Re:Currency exchange

[ddent]

There is actually an option to change that in your profile settings. I think they were forced to add it by the card associations.

Re:Currency exchange

[phorm]

I've found it for receiving payment, but not for sending, but maybe it's either well-hidden or I'm just not catching it?

Advertising's effect is very easy to measure

[vorlich]

1) compare your total quarterly sales (minus the cost of the ad campaign) after your ad campaign to the previous (ad-free) quarterly sales.
2) ???
3) Profit!

Promotion works in the same quantifiable way:
1) Clip out all of the newsmedia references to your product and multiply that media line rate by 2 and invoice client.
2) ???
3) Profit!

Do some research

[melted]

eBay is Google's biggest AdWords customer. If eBay pulls out for good, you will see it in quarterly earnings and stock price (with billions in valuation gone). This is not worth a marketing stunt (unless Google is ready to release their own auction site very very soon).

Haters Unite

[m8j0rp8n]

It continues to amaze me how Google can spawn legions of fans regardless of their industry. To me Ebay has been the killer app of the Internet for so long and continues to remain relevant. Where else can I sell my crap for way more than it's worth. Craigslist? That's for the lowball deal hunters. You bet my 4 year old navigation software is worth the same as I paid retail for it, at least on Ebay that's true. Yes their fees keep climbing, but so does that bidding mania. But once again Google can do no wrong.

Can I use paypal on google base?

[Anonymous Coward]

no! Why the double standards then.

a backfire that backfired?

[pjr.cc]

its interesting how they paint the whole situation when you take into account my situation:

1) hadn't heard of google checkout until now
2) ran off to find out what it was
3) was interested cause i despise paypal with a pasion.

Perhaps it is true "there is no such thing as bad publicity".

How the discussion really went ...

[freaker_TuC]

googleguy1: hey, I got a prank here I want to put on-line for just a few secs
googleguy2: nice! If you would post that ad on the e-bay frontpage it will make great coverage!
googleguy1: and they won't even notice!
googleguy2: hahaha but we cannot do that, it's immoral!
googleguy1: naah, if you press enter, I typed in the command for you
googleguy3: hey whatcha doing?
googleguy2: want to make free commercials of Checkout on the ebay site?
googleguy3: how do you mean?
googleguy1: just press enter and you will see!
googleguy3: No I don't if I don't know why?
googleguy2 and 1: just press enter, it's a minor thing!
teamleader: oh, just press enter, here, *tap* I did it for you!
googleguy1: woooooooot!
googleguy2: let's go eat something, I'm hungry
googleguy3: hey I know I nice restaurant nearby here, I'll pay.

Re:Fine with me

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe I can get adblock to click the ads just before hiding them ?

Re:Hypocrisy? Or just sour grapes?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an ex-eBay employee, though I worked in a side part of their business.

The reason why eBay bans Western Union is that there are a lot of scammers who attempt to get people to wire money from the USA to the UK through Western Union. Once you've done this, your money is gone, and there is no way to trace it. This is so common that if you have any sizeable user base where users can solicit other users you'll quickly find that Western Union is a very good sign that you have a scammer.

I believe it to be entirely coincidence that scammers discovered how ideal Western Union is for their purposes at around the same time as the PayPal purchase. However once scammers started using this trick in large numbers, trying to make it hard to request payments through Western Union was simple self-defence.

Fuel Rods?

[zdude255]

Does this mean we can no longer find fuel rods on ebay?

Paypal

[atomic-penguin]

I haven't used Paypal since they canceled the BillPay program.

Is eBay a search engine?

[nmw]

Simple question, simply answer (I don't care if you say "yes" or "no" -- the reasoning would interest me more)...

Re:8==0

[Anonymous Coward]

false

Easiest logic problem ever!

And they are going to do this how?

[jotaeleemeese]

Talking to a crystal ball?

If they had foreseen this they would have made the correct implementation.

It is clearly something they did not think about, so the more potential costumers let them know, the faster they will react to this.

Some people here act like if Google was infallible and all powerful and knowing. Disturbing.