eBay to scrap all 3rd party checkouts

eBay have announced that as of the 30th June 2011 they will be closing all 3rd party checkouts and the only checkout available on eBay will be eBay’s own checkout.

This will impact 3rd party solution provides such as ChannelAdvisor, eSellerPro and 4Sellers and the companies will have to rejig their software solutions to use eBay Checkout. The biggest impact will be on stock control as they’ll need to find an alternative way to deplete seller’s available inventory, especially when that inventory is being sold across multiple marketplaces. eBay say that “the change will not affect any of the inventory management and listing features that you currently use through that provider and we will continue to work closely with them to support these”, although doubtless some service providers will need to rejig their software if they’ve not already done so.

Other benefits of 3rd party checkouts include advanced shipping calculations and discounts for multiple purchases and the ability to offer multiple payment options such as the sellers own credit card merchant account. It’ll also remove options for sellers to allow buyers to add themselves to mailing lists which will impact the ability for merchants to market to previous customers off eBay.

Many buyers are likely to welcome the move as 3rd party checkouts aren’t universally popular despite their advantages to merchants.

The changes will only impact you directly if you use a service provider who offers a 3rd party checkout and they have all been briefed on the changes and will be able to work with you to migrate your solutions well before the deadline of June next year.