DailyTech - Google's GBuy on Target to Aim for eBay and PayPal

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Internet Google's GBuy on Target to Aim for eBay and PayPal
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - June 12, 2006 5:25 PM

26 comment(s) - last by leousb.. on Jun 13 at 1:41 PM

Stiff competition coming for the eBay/Yahoo partnership

DailyTech previously reported that Google was developing an online payment system called "GBuy." The system is one of many systems under development from Google, to make it easier for online users to pay for items they buy through a trusted source, in this case, Google. However, news is out this week that GBuy is turning out to be much more than a PayPal competitor -- Google has plans to turn it into an eBay competitor as well.

According to several reports circulating around, Google will be launching its GBuy service later this month, presumably on the 28th. Google has not been speaking much about GBuy since the first few details of it were released to the public. Other Google services such as Calendar, Finance and Spreadsheet have been taking the lime light.

Analysts had expected that GBuy was going to launch soon primarily because earlier this year, eBay and Yahoo announced an agreement to co-operate together, to improve each other's traffic. Google is expected to leverage its AdSense and AdWords programs into GBuy in a similar fashion that it has done with GMail.

Some reports and analysts suggest that judging by Google's history; it may not charge any fees to post a sale on its service. This would quickly gain Google a client base that is accustomed to Google's "free and everywhere" model. Whether or not that this mode will last for GBuy however, remains to be seen.

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I welcome thee

By Brandon Hill

(blog) on 6/12/2006 5:34:50 PM , Rating: 3

Let's see. My PayPal fees for last month were $188.01. I welcome GBuy and would gladly use it if the fees are reasonable.

RE: I welcome thee

By AllThingsSimple on 6/12/2006 6:33:27 PM , Rating: 2

Im with you, Paypal needs some competition. If its from Google, all the better. I will be using it free or not.

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RE: I welcome thee

By SLEEPER5555 on 6/12/2006 6:49:37 PM , Rating: 2

agreed, undercut paypal and you have my companies buisness.

as for the ebay competitor i doubt they can compete traffic wise and free auctions will make more people selling the same items. with lower traffic and more units this will make sales prices less on google auctions than on ebay

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RE: I welcome thee

By ElJefe69 on 6/12/2006 6:56:44 PM , Rating: 2

paypal is a terrible company. it offers no protection for the people that need it, the sellers.

buyers always try and screw the sellers. Reversals and "someone stole my credit card" yet I never canceled it, are crap that paypal welcomes so long as you pay their fees as a seller. the first day it is up, I am moving my 3-4 thousand dollar volume off of that.

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RE: I welcome thee

By geeg on 6/13/2006 1:33:57 AM , Rating: 2

both paypal and ebay are terrible companies. they charge a lot for no guaranteed protection at all. lotsa fake items on ebay, noone regulates..

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RE: I welcome thee

By creathir on 6/12/2006 8:22:12 PM , Rating: 2

Man... In fees alone?
Of course, you fail to mention how much CREDIT CARD processing costs...
Its more expensive than that in some cases!
I think you're complaining about a service that really allows credit card processing to be brought to the masses...

Sure competition is great, but you are not including your income...
So if you only brought in $200, yeah, $180 is a lot.
If you brought in $10,000, man you're greedy....

- Creathir

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RE: I welcome thee

By Brandon Hill

(blog) on 6/12/2006 9:32:03 PM , Rating: 2

Let's just say that last month I had around $5,000 in sales. PayPal + eBay fees equaled a total of $527.

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RE: I welcome thee

By creathir on 6/13/2006 12:39:36 AM , Rating: 1

So $5000, $180 in fees, for credit card processing....
That's a 3.6% fee per transaction (average)

Many credit card companies CHARGE this amount... sometimes more, on the merchant, to provide credit card transactions

I think you're getting a pretty good deal... esp. considering you are doing something that 5 years ago was not even possible...

- Creathir

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RE: I welcome thee

By geeg on 6/13/2006 1:35:19 AM , Rating: 2

so credit card companies charging like that is wrong maybe eh? You hired by paypal?

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RE: I welcome thee

By creathir on 6/13/2006 12:11:33 PM , Rating: 2

Nope...
I just think that people need to keep things in mind when talking about paypal. This is something that was NOT AVAILABLE to ANYONE just a few years ago. You had to get merchant accounts with the credit card companies in order to handle credit card processing. On top of that, the seller is ALWAYS the responsible party (seeing as they are the ones with the goods)

This is why you only accept pre-payment or else have someone PROVE they are trustworthy (fill out a credit application or something like this)

People that complain about how this system has worked for years upon years, even when there are solutions available to help the little guy (Paypal and other small merchant accounts with the credit card companies) are really showing the little appreciation they have for the service the credit card companies are providing. I suppose they could just choose not to accept credit cards... that would solve that problem... but then wait, how would they get their money? Snail mail? I guess 3.6% is the price you pay for instant gratification.

- Creathir

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RE: I welcome thee

By bamacre on 6/12/2006 9:44:50 PM , Rating: 2

I did well over half a million in sales in 2005 over Ebay. I spent roughly $20K in ebay and paypal fees.

As far as service, Ebay and PayPal are both horrible.

As far as fees, PayPal fees are not quite as excessive as Ebay fees. It is a one-two punch for sellers with both however.

Buyers are actually the ones who end up eating these fees, as sellers just increase their shipping fees. Look how many computers on ebay carry a $99 or more shipping fee. That $99+ shipping cost normally covers the seller's shipping costs, ebay fees, and paypal fees.

So it is the customer who is really being screwed over with Ebay and PayPal, not so much the seller.

So, if Google could really develop a service to compete with Ebay/Paypal, and charge less, it will greatly benefit not just sellers, but also buyers.

I assume there will be a fee for transfers, there just has to be with the cost of credit card transactions. But if the listing and final value fees are none, i.e., no cost for the seller, this would, overall, be less than half the cost of doing business over Ebay/Paypal. I pay a 2.6% transaction fee with PayPal, and more than 3% with Ebay. So, as you can see, if I could get rid of the "ebay" fee, I could offer my customers better prices.

Go Google Go. I'd be honored to be your first seller. And I'd love to tell Ebay and Paypal to go fvck themselves.

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Unfortunately

By dnd728 on 6/12/2006 7:25:09 PM , Rating: 2

Things like CC payments would always cost. Mastercard isn't google.
And besides, google would still need something to compensate for fraud losses...

RE: Unfortunately

By segagenesis on 6/12/2006 8:56:50 PM , Rating: 2

I don't think many eBayer types will care as long as someone comes in and gives eBay some real competition this time. I just hope they don't make the same mistakes at the same time. How Paypal is still not regulated like a normal bank is beyond all logic and comprehension to me.

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RE: Unfortunately

By Pirks on 6/12/2006 9:27:26 PM , Rating: 1

quote:
How Paypal is still not regulated like a normal bank is beyond all logic and comprehension to me.

Possible explanation why this happens: nobody keeps serious amount of money on his/her PayPal account, this service is used to quickly move money between bank accounts of buyers and sellers, hence it is a transient thing, hence noone thinks about equating it to a real bank where you can have your large pile of $$$ in relative safety. To me a BANK and an ELECTRONIC MONEY TRANSFER SERVICE are very different things. Therefore a different treatment, so don't expect PayPal to become regulated like your bank where you keep your savings. UNLESS PayPal introduces high interest rate savings account similar to ING Direct - but this is totally different thing, they don't seem to be interested in that just yet.

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RE: Unfortunately

By slashbinslashbash on 6/13/2006 1:04:01 AM , Rating: 2

I'm getting 4.73% on my PayPal balance as a money-market account (free upgrade to my PayPal account.... can't remember when I activated it... I think I got an e-mail about it). Which is about 0.4% higher than my ING Direct account. I'm not a big eBayer, but I recently sold a PC there and I'm keeping that couple hundred bucks in PayPal as long as it gets that rate! (or until I spend that much on eBay...) So they are DEFINITELY trying to get people to keep larger sums on PayPal for longer periods of time.

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RE: Unfortunately

By Pirks on 6/13/2006 2:20:22 AM , Rating: 1

quote:
I'm getting 4.73% on my PayPal balance as a money-market account

Doh, must be American only thing - nothing for Canada, as usual.

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RE: Unfortunately

By TheDoc9 on 6/13/2006 10:20:12 AM , Rating: 2

Also don't forget that if they became a bank, which I'm sure they've tried, they could create money (for every dollar a bank recieves it can loan 10, thus creating 9 more dollars). The last thing we want is for those greedy bastards to get even richer.

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Thank you Lord

By Esquire on 6/12/2006 9:58:10 PM , Rating: 2

for this
mena

RE: Thank you Lord

By Esquire on 6/12/2006 10:00:15 PM , Rating: 2

mena and amen

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Screw 'em

By brshoemak on 6/13/2006 8:13:12 AM , Rating: 2

To hell with eBay.

I'm not a big seller but had a modest 150 feedback, 100% positive. I moved into an apartment in college with a friend who ended up screwing around 10 people on eBay. When I moved out I found that his account had been suspended and because I shared his address (the apartment) mine had too. Not only that but I can't even open a new account because they can track me by name, CC #, etc. as I move so even if I try I get shot down. Plus, I'd rather keep my account as I did nothing wrong.

Well my friend turned out to be a douche, I don't know how to get in contact with him anymore so ebay decides it's up to me to go through their process of cleaning up his mess to get me account un-suspended (sp?).

After trying for a couple months to contact each person, try to convince them that my e-mail is not a scam I have come to the conclusion that it would be easier to get a handjob from Bin Laden than get my account back. screw ebay.

/rant

RE: Screw 'em

By xKelemvor on 6/13/2006 12:40:48 PM , Rating: 2

I'll also jump on anything that I can use that's free (or cheaper) than Paypal. If paypal would only charge fees on the CC transactiosn anot on every transaction once you upgrade their account, I wouldn't have a problem with them. But since they do that, I'll gladly head elsewhere.

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Straight to Hell with Paypal!

By leousb on 6/13/2006 1:37:53 PM , Rating: 2

Da hell with Paypal, bunch of a**holes. Also try to recover my account for a mistake that wasn´t my fault, sending mail, faxes with my personal id, passport,etc,etc and never worked out, probably easier to get get Bush out of Irak than that.

RE: Straight to Hell with Paypal!

By leousb on 6/13/2006 1:41:23 PM , Rating: 2

I´d still use it if it is more expensive than ebay/paypal . . .

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Clean Interface

By Penth on 6/12/2006 10:16:43 PM , Rating: 2

I just hope they let me log into my account without making me view a full page ad for another credit card offer.

Bye-bye eBay feedback :-((

By Pirks on 6/12/2006 7:01:21 PM , Rating: 1

I have feedback of 100 with 100% positive on eBay, and this is something REAL hard to lose. But if they make auctions free for sellers and money transfer fees lower than PayPal's 3% for credit cards then.. well... I guess I'll be slowly building my feedback on google fromnow on, just make this gbuy thing available NOW!

By Chiisuchianu on 6/12/2006 9:33:14 PM , Rating: 1

FINALLY!!!!!!!!

ive been dying to get rid of ebay and paypal, but theres no competition.

finally! and i love google, as a company, so all the better. and i know they will treat us right and make everything clean and simple.

GOOGLE IS # 1

"Intel is investing heavily (think gazillions of dollars and bazillions of engineering man hours) in resources to create an Intel host controllers spec in order to speed time to market of the USB 3.0 technology." -- Intel blogger Nick Knupffer