PayPal alternatives

[theElench]

I agree that knowledge of the site is an issue but as I've said here and on obay, as obay's search engine gets worse, making it increasingly difficult for buyers to find what they want, most of my buyers have made their first purchase on ebid from me. Presumably coming here through google shopping or they are looking at alternative sites.

But I disagree with you about the idea of automatic FB added by the site for two reasons. Firstly, FB has always been voluntary on every site I've looked at and I don't think that should change. Partly for the second reason.

Before I listed anything on Ebid I read some of the independent reviews I could find. Some were quite uncomplementary, even going so far as to say that Charity Auctions (YDC) were a way for sellers to inflate their FB scores.
Now that we know for sure that some obay employees will commit illegal acts to silence criticism, I don't doubt that they would have any scruples about planting hostile reviews. It makes me wonder how "independent" some of ebids poor reviews were.

For Ebid to be the only site to automatically award FB to its own sellers would be all too easy to use as another stick to beat ebid with by implying that it's doing something devious. IMO a Transaction Counter (already used by the Craft & Vintage site) would show an accurate number of transactions successfully completed, without blurring or diluting the FB left by buyers.

I do think that the perception of paypal (and obay)) have changed since they split-up. Previously their pretty much seamless operation made buying and selling an easy, even pleasurable experience. That's been far from the truth recently. Paypal blundered with its arm-twisting to get people to use mobiles, freezing accounts and balances and the increasing number of Charge-Backs (the £12 fee mentioned above). I'm not going to bother with details about obay, anyone who still uses the site knows what an absolutely horrendous site its become.

With public disenchantment with both sites probably at an all time high, there hasn't been a better time for Ebid to make changes, offering more integrated payment options and giving buyers more confidence in sellers can only be beneficial IMO.


PS. Is it just me? My spell-check seems to have stopped working??

[20sent06]

Well, the buyer had bought off me before and the items were received on that occasion... why the address failed this time, who knows. The buyer seems happy I guess to have his money back. I've had no dialogue with the buyer either, so he won't get any more from me.

So, meantime I will stick with Paypal like the rest of us, I guess... being the devil we all know to love and hate in so many ways (both as buyer and seller)

It's what happens over time when automated systems are introduced to manage human transactions, and the feel-good factor is diminished!

However, I must admit that the new ebay payment system actually works well for the seller at the end of the day and is something eBid could well emulate in my opinion.

I believe that eBid should push it's nose out there a bit more, even at the expense of higher fees! I have been trading for over 30 years in post cards and I still meet people who have never, ever heard of eBid!

C'mon eBid, get yer' act together!

[BordersBargains]

Yep I guess the Fb idea was a bit selfish of me

The site needs work and it doesn't seem to be happening, The most important thing in my opinion is to add all those payment options we see on other sites, Paypal IMO is not used a popularly as it use to, many members of my family have stopped using PP and only use cards, some even use google and apple pay

When 0bay announced managed payments, tons of sellers started looking for alternatives because they just didn't trust 0bay at the time, but it actually works really well. That was however the ideal time for eBid to make some changes and become 100 times as busy easily but sadly nothing happened and most of my fellow sellers looked at the site really like the layout and the search being pretty accurate but three main things put them off - Payment options, Traffic and the 24 hour seller+ offer

Don't get me wrong I'm not dissing the site, I actually love its simplicity, great layout and it's much easier to use than 0bay and I want it to become my main place to sell but the site needs changes and visibility. Mind you when I have listings here and 0bay and they sell here instead it does make me feel good

I am also very happy to pay more in fee's here if it allows them to start providing branded Tape, poly bags etc

[theElench]

After six months of PP logging me in by completing 2Step Verification using my land-line to receive the text code, last week I was back to square-one again.

A sale here and I wanted to check the payment and shipping address. The land-line didn't ring and I was refused access to my account yet again. Instead I got the "Update your MOBILE number" page. I did manage to get in after the usual performance of to-ing and fro-ing using the Back Button a few times. Sick to the teethe of having to rely on such a dictatorial, manipulative and unreliable payment processor. The sooner ebid dumps them or at least integrates other payment options, the better IMO.

[BordersBargains]

Oh god yes, I am so sick to death of always having to put the stupid code all the time

[20sent06]

Well, I've also had problems with Paypal lately, which has served me well until now...

Did you know that they will charge £12 if a dispute goes against you as a seller! Obscene!

Story : I had a sale to a customer in Germany, and sent the item standard postage rate... he never received it and submitted a claim to Paypal... meantime it was returned to me with "address incomplete" ... so I put that in the report with an image of the returned packet stating that I would be happy to resend to an correct address.

Paypal continued to side with buyer, simply stating "the item was not received by the buyer" --- of course not! - reasons were ignored!! Doh! - but I resented paying £12 for the privilege of not being in the wrong here...

BE WARNED!

Are there any other online payment choices to use, I wonder?

Latest poo from Paypal:

Your PayPal account has been categorised into the High-volume dispute fee tier

As your claims to sales ratio (your dispute rate) has been greater than or equal to 1.5%, your account is now categorised as High Tier.

For cases you receive after July 01, 2022, these changes will apply on your account:

You won't be able to ask for item returns from buyers on cross-border transactions under $100 USD (or equivalent in other currencies).
You'll be charged a dispute fee based on the tier.

Account details

Current tier
Dispute rate 2.53%
Upcoming tier High-volume dispute fee tier
The dispute fee is based on the ratio of all cases you receive where it was reported that the item wasn't received or wasn't as described to the total amount of your sales for the last 3 months.

We'll review your dispute rate every month and if it remains greater than or equal to 1.5% for 3 consecutive months, your PayPal Seller Protection eligibility will be revoked for item that has not received chargebacks. Your response time for a case will be reduced to 3 days.

We encourage you to take necessary measures to keep your dispute rate in check.

I have had one dispute while I was on holiday in all the years I have been a Paypal member - definitely time to change channel!

[BordersBargains]

This is the issue many sellers have nowadays - We cannot escape most of the big boys who have power over us

eBay, PP, Etsy etc all making up more fee's to squeeze more money from us and they think there's nothing we can do about it but we can!

Stripe and Apple Pay among others are now ranking higher than PP! I really hope the owners of this site start adding some methods because the site is starting to get that dinosaur feel to it and I would prefer it not to go extinct

I have invested a fair amount of time here and have always wanted it to be my main site instead of eBay but I never see any efforts to grow the site and if I one day I lose PP, the site will become insignificant to me

[20sent06]

This is the issue many sellers have nowadays - We cannot escape most of the big boys who have power over us

eBay, PP, Etsy etc all making up more fee's to squeeze more money from us and they think there's nothing we can do about it but we can!

Stripe and Apple Pay among others are now ranking higher than PP! I really hope the owners of this site start adding some methods because the site is starting to get that dinosaur feel to it and I would prefer it not to go extinct

I have invested a fair amount of time here and have always wanted it to be my main site instead of eBay but I never see any efforts to grow the site and if I one day I lose PP, the site will become insignificant to me

Echo That!

I am that close to chucking it all in now!

[theElench]

This is the issue many sellers have nowadays - We cannot escape most of the big boys who have power over us

eBay, PP, Etsy etc all making up more fee's to squeeze more money from us and they think there's nothing we can do about it but we can!

Stripe and Apple Pay among others are now ranking higher than PP! I really hope the owners of this site start adding some methods because the site is starting to get that dinosaur feel to it and I would prefer it not to go extinct

I have invested a fair amount of time here and have always wanted it to be my main site instead of eBay but I never see any efforts to grow the site and if I one day I lose PP, the site will become insignificant to me

I agree with both of you. Never even knew that PP had a "High Volume Dispute Tier", which, if my maths are correct this early in the morning, means that a seller who gets 3 chargebacks in 200 sales, over 3 months becomes "High Tier"?? and of course pays even more.

1% fee to transfer money to a bank?? How long before that becomes "industry standard" when the big boys jump on the band-wagon, next time they want to boost their bottom line?

PP's excessive use of 2Step Verification I'm certain has nothing to do with security or the FCA guidelines which say (something like) the second step should be used at intervals to prove it's still the account holder using the account and if there's "uncharacteristic" activity which might possibly indicate fraud. NOT every time an account holder tries to log-in for routine activities such as checking a buyer has paid. It's being done to pressurise sellers without mobile phones, into using one. Just because that suits PP's agenda.

I can't say I've invested huge amounts of time on ebid. (I don't have huge amounts of time) But I have taken the time to work-out a way to make the site work for me. I contribute something to the coffers every week (listing fees) and since I've persevered with my way of using the site also pay regular FVF's. I'd also like to make ebid my main selling site, I've managed to get to the point that sales here are virtually the same as those I get on obay using a similar amount of my limited time.

I feel the same as you, I'm simply a cash cow for obay and PP who manage to increase the agravation of on-line selling year by year while they take an ever bigger slice of the proceeds. I can't cut the ties with obay while I have to rely on PP for payments here. Doing so pushes me back into the claws of obay where (so far) I can at least rely on getting my money, if and when I do sell something.

My thoughts, increasingly fed-up with rip-off obay, PP bullying and no signs of any sort of site improvement here that might help me out of their clutches, turn to ways of selling all my "stock" as a job-lot and abandoning on-line selling altogether.

[mrbrianf]

I signed up for eBid today, and then and got stripe, but I still don't understand how I am to link together. Also Don't understand why I cannot start my own forum thread. Please help, or point me to help, thanks!