Ebay Bans Google Checkout

[Brett_Tabke]

Starting next July, eBay will no longer let Google provide transaction checkout services on eBay Web sites. It won’t allow any checkout service except its own PayPal-featured service.

EBay’s instituting the new policy “to give eBay buyers a consistent, speedy checkout experience and to ensure support for fast-growing sales via mobile platforms...,” Todd Lutwak, eBay’s vice president of the seller experience, wrote in a little-noticed blog post last week.

Google Checkout doesn’t offer PayPal.

“Google Checkout is clearly competitive with PayPal,” said Eric Best, chief executive of Mercent, an e-commerce services company. “Part of their motivation is likely driven by the competitive dynamic between those two payment programs.”
[blogs.investors.com...]

[J_RaD]

“Google Checkout is clearly competitive with PayPal,”

took them this long to figure that out?

[bwnbwn]

There are some issues with time to pull required shipping data with Google Chcekout that may as well play into this decision. I know Google allows a very small window to pull the shipping and there are many times when it goes to the default shipping and not the correct shipping.
I would still rather use Google over paypal any day of the week. I can't stand paypal and or ebay.

[wheel]

I wish I was big enough to be able to tell Google to kiss my butt :).

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Didn't you just do so? ;)

[oddsod]

Google's got too many fingers in too many pies, but I'm uncomfortable with Paypal being the only option. I neither like nor trust them (despite what most people think, Paypal in the UK is not as safe as houses - not since they moved out of the UK and the controls of UK regulators).

[zeus]

wheel - that was a good one, but why did they let such a big competitor in at the first place, that was a mistake.

[ByronM]

There are some issues with time to pull required shipping data with Google Chcekout that may as well play into this decision. I know Google allows a very small window to pull the shipping and there are many times when it goes to the default shipping and not the correct shipping.

I can't for the life of me understand WHY this is still a problem.. I dropped google checkout for this reason (amongst many others) years ago.

I must say, out of the lesser of two evils, i had a lot fewer problems with Paypal then i ever had with google checkout.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I'm torn. On one hand I think it's a smart move by eBay to increase use of their own products but on the other I think it will hasten the demise of eBay by further alienating more users and more importantly alienating more sellers/affiliates.

As of late eBay is COMPLETELY IGNORING THEIR OWN AFFILIATES [forums.ebay.com...] so this feels like a stopgap measure to try and stop the financial bleeding imo. eBay seems to have forgotten it's their users who made ebay what it is today and they continually implement changes none of them asked for. Sites like eBay, Myspace etc became popular in part because their users could use them as THEY wanted to.

edit: ebay isn't what it used to be and sites like Craigslist have far fewer hoops to jump through, for free. This latest move is... inconvenient.

[edited by: Sgt_Kickaxe at 9:58 pm (utc) on Sep 1, 2010]

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

We'll, I'm not surprised...

... but more important things on eBay are broken. For example if you look at an auto auction you'll see a "shipping quote" service provided by eBay. It's called gigamoves. Try to visit [gigamoves.com...] and see where you end up (rent.com). I mean c'mon, how unprofessional is that? Their affiliate forum lists all of the broken things, that have been broken for months in many cases, yet THIS is what they fix?

[Web_speed]

IMO, it is a good move. I just hate seeing Google sticking their fingers into the pockets of every business on the web.

BUT, is banning Google Checkout even legal?

It is an anti competitive move and i know it was stopped from happening here in Australia some time ago. Ebay wanted to limit payment method to paypal only and the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) stepped in and made them change thier mind immediately.

[digitaltoast]

I just hate seeing Google sticking their fingers into the pockets of every business on the web.

Er....eh?

[MrFewkes]

Excellent - the more people who ban goofle and whatever they are doing to make cash off them the better place the net will be.

Heres two fingers in the air to you goofle

[frontpage]

Err... I don't know about the rest of you but I have yet to use Google Checkout. I have never had a merchant require it for a transaction.

[Sierra_Dad]

Ironically, Google is considering allowing other payment methods in Android Market which only uses Google Checkout.

Rumors are that it has considered PayPal. Maybe not anymore.

[super70s]

I remember a couple of years ago I happened to order an inkjet cartridge replacement from a company called EforCity through eBay and a digital camera battery from that same company through Amazon within one month of each other. I got so disgusted with EforCity's eBay checkout that in the eBay feedback I wrote, "Order from EforCity through Amazon and avoid their ridiculous 10-screen eBay checkout."

I was kind of surprised that EforCity gave me a glowing feedback response anyway.