TAG | eBay forced into humiliating backdown on PayPal only attempt |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Thursday, 03 July 2008 | |
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Page 3 of 4 Sensis, the information, search, directory and mapping division of Telstra, Australia’s dominant telco, is also the owner of the Trading Post online and print based classifieds and now auction-based marketplace. That’s because Telstra and its divisions touch many more people’s lives than eBay ever has, so it’s had plenty more opportunity to annoy people over the years and decades. Be that as it may, Sensis’ Trading Post has asked Australians who buy and sell online to question whether they should still trust and use eBay. Dr. Elisabet Wreme, the Acting General Manager of Sensis Classifieds says “Amid all the hostility and confusion in the market, the Trading Post, along with a number of other local online auction and classifieds sites have been providing competition and choice in the marketplace for buyers and sellers. "After months of very public criticism, only now eBay is aware it was not acting in the interests of Australian buyers and sellers through its attempt to make sellers use its own payment service PayPal. "It has taken hundreds of angry public submissions plus the threat of action from the ACCC for eBay to withdraw its notification at the 11th-hour. Businesses that make a living by selling online must surely be questioning their credibility. "That is why with our new online auction capability, Trading Post gives Australians a choice of payment options when selling online," said Dr Wreme. Whether existing buyers and sellers on eBay will heed Sensis’ call to question eBay, especially now eBay has reversed its decision, is unknown. Personally I’d have thought that buyers and sellers would have already been doing that over the past few months, with other Australian auction sites seeming to be the prime beneficiaries, and something that motivated Sensis into reactivating its previously failed auction efforts, except this time with a lot of anti-eBay momentum. Sensis will need to go into marketing overdrive to truly capture not only sellers’ attention, but that of buyers, too. Just as I’ve seen a lot of online eBay ads in recent times, I’ve seen Sensis ads when out and about, so this decision will probably see even more advertising from all the auction sites operating in Australia as each battles it out to gain new market share. So, what does the payment company that eBay Australia originally set up in the pre-Paypal days have to say? This company is called Paymate, and they were spun out of eBay Australia long ago. Its CEO’s comment is on page 4, please read on! |
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