eBay France sellers protest compulsory PayPal policy
by Sue Bailey
Sellers on eBay France are up in arms about a policy change which forces them to offer PayPal as a method of payment on every auction and fixed price listing on the site.
eBay France’s published accepted payments policy says that sellers with fewer than 50 feedbacks must offer PayPal as one of their payment methods: this policy was announced in April and implemented in July.
However, several much larger, well-established sellers have said that as of yesterday, they too were forced to offer PayPal as payment method on eBay France. Attempting to list an item without PayPal on a registered business account with 2500 feedbacks just got me this message:
To list an item for sale, you need to accept PayPal as a means of payment.
In fact, the change was included in the July announcement of changes: some clicking, some digging, and there under “other changes” is the information that “from autumn 2009, you will have to offer PayPal as a means of payment”. There’s no date, and to the best of my knowledge, there has been no subsequent clarifying announcement. The new eBay France user agreement published on 20th October makes no mention of a change in payments policy or of compulsory PayPal. And for what it’s worth, there seems to be no “as you sign in” splash page announcement and there is nothing in My Messages. It’s just been done.
I thought eBay had got over this. Recent changes on eBay UK and eBay.com have been notified down to the hour they were expected. Anglophone sites have done a great deal of work to make sellers feel that they were being given adequate notice of and time to adapt to site changes. Not so on eBay.fr.
The French love cheques to a level incomprehensible in Britain. Supermarket shoppers routinely use cheques. Many very large eBay sellers accept no other method of payment. French buyers left to their own devices, by my calculation, pay by cheque at least a quarter of the time. (I’ll spare you the details of the banking system here; suffice it to say this is not just Ludditism; there are some good reasons why people stick with cheques.) eBay’s different national sites have, until now, given them great flexibility to adapt to local conditions. But this policy and the back-door way it’s been implemented show absolute ignorance of how French buyers and sellers want to behave. When French sellers say they will leave the site over this, they are not, I think, making idle threats.
Update 22h00: There’s now an official reminder/notification about the policy change.
12 Responses on "eBay France sellers protest compulsory PayPal policy"
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Straight from the USA via Dublin?
France does not seem to matter too much to eBay in their long term plans.
Hence no eBay France included in the block of European TRS countries, customer service from Dublin etc.
There was a rumour that the entire eBay France office was run by a work-experience guy in Quebec (I know because I started it…
)
The French are certainly not so enamoured with eBay as say the British or the Germans: I think in large part because we already had a well-established tradition of “sell your old tat” shops (depots ventes) so it wasn’t the lifeline it was say in the UK. Plus shopping-as-hobby doesn’t happen nearly so much here.
Totally non eBay or France related I did once contemplate the “power” of starting a rumour which would create a self fulfilling prophecy. In fact I think I’ll test this theory …. I’ll let you know Sue
“The French are certainly not so enamoured with eBay as say the British or the Germans”
My opinion of the French people has just gone up
It’s the French. Who cares?
Our readers who either reside in France care, (of which there are quite a few) and also those who may not live in France but choose to list on eBay.fr
Feel free not to read anything that’s not of interest to you personally though (well at least until we figure out how to make it complusory
)
So how many is “quite a few” out of interest ? Any ideas of numbers here, I know about Sue obviously, I can even pinpoint her on the Google Analytics map thingummy linked up to my blog.
Myself, I have a lot of readers on my blog from Belgium, God knows why, I haven’t figured that one out yet.
A reasonable percentage of our readers come from France, a lot more than the 1% (which is still a fair few per month!) that come from Belgium. I don’t have a clue how many list on eBay.fr apart from those I know personally.
You also have French readers that happen to live in the UK…
When will Ebay learn that if they allienate the sellers they allienate the buyers
Most of the sellers on Ebay are also excellent buyers….seller goes….buyer goes….BASIC
It’s all turning towards Paypal Only on the spin thats it’s all for “safety”….YEAH RIGHT OH !
They tried it in OZ and got kicked in the goolies, they are gradually bringing it in the UK….gently, gently so that there isn’t so much uproar as if there would be if they done it all in one go
Ebay’s reputation is in the gutter and ebay’s CUSTOMERS….you know…CUSTOMERS are the sellers…..OUR customers are the buyers
Let us deal with our side and let Ebay get their house in order
All of these changes they have implemented have ruined sales where in a credit crunch enviroment Ebay should be booming but where sellers are forced to incorporate P+P fees, Paypal fees, Listing fees and FVF’s into their start price the customer can buy it cheaper in the shops
Ebay needs a complete overhaul and get back to basics and stop treating sellers as if they are stupid otherwise it will all be too late to turn around and build again
IMHO
“The French love cheques to a level incomprehensible in Britain”
I know – we at AuctionChex have a UK based seller lising on eBay.fr, he sends us a bundle of cheques in Euro to be cashed each and every month
Hi English speaking people! Sorry for any mistakes I’m French (sorry?). Having started to sell on the French website Ibazar in 2001 I was thus later forced into eBay. I sell mainly books and small collectibles – the prices of them moststly under EUR 10 and even under EUR 5. Feedback over 2500 100 % positive. I’ve stopped since yesterday to sell there and won’t start it again unless THEY cancel the new rule that makes Paypal compulsory. By the way, I don’t own a credit card and use checks, not that I love them, but because they are cheap, almost free. And as far as distant sales are concerned direct money transfers are free within a large group of European countries, provided you do it yourself on your online bank account. You don’t even have to use card codes! Why should we have to pay for Paypal? Moreover : I’ve already been paid once by an American who used another company which didn’t ask me to pay any charge (Payp..). Is being forced to take Paypal liberalism? I don’like it. Sorry? Hi Steve Antony Williams!