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February 19, 2008

Making eBay Safer For Buyers

As eBay sellers, we naturally want eBay to be as safe as possible for buyers, so they will feel reassured about buying. Lots of media attention has gone to eBay fraud so any measure at all that will make buying safer is good for us sellers.

Beginning in March, some sellers are going to be required to offer additional protection to buyers. This applies only certain sellers or situations:

For listings in riskier categories: gift certificates, video games, cell phones, computers and consumer electronics
If the seller has 5% or more dissatisfied customers
If the seller has less than 100 feedback points

Sellers who are required to offer a safer payment option, might also have PayPal "hold' their payment until the earliest of the following occurs:

The buyer leaves positive feedback
3 days after "confirmed item delivery"
21 days without a dispute, claim, chargeback, or reversal filed on that transaction.

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NOTE: Confirmed item delivery = US domestic transactions that are shipped by USPS or FedEx and either (i) use PayPal shipping labels to ship items or (ii) upload tracking information to PayPal via the transaction details page.

eBay Motors vehicle categories (Cars & Trucks, Motorcycles, Powersports, Boats, and Other Vehicles categories and subcategories) will not be included in these payment policy changes.

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What Is eBay Definition Of A "Safer Payment"?

What this means is that the seller must offer either PayPal or a credit card. I'm assuming this is because buyers can get their money returned with these two options, if the buyer doesn't deliver.

I am also assuming this is a slap at Google Checkout. According to eBay, "eBay sellers listing with PayPal have an Unpaid Item rate more than half of sellers who don't."

eBay further adds: "On a small number of cases (fewer than 5% of all payments on eBay), PayPal will hold payment funds until either the buyer has left positive feedback or 21 days have passed without a claim." They don't specify what situations these are.

Posted by SydneyJohnston at February 19, 2008 12:20 PM

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