Is Apple Going to Compete with PayPal?

Two interesting tidbits Wednesday. First, I was doing some broad searches on eBay (EBAY) and in some cases was seeing this result set:

What this treatment does is take a broad search (iPod in this example) and it injects a category filter below the first two results. This seems to be the kind of test you would run if you had found that people aren't using the left nav to do category filtering and you want to put it right up in their faces. A couple of thoughts:

1. Whether you like the treatment or not - it's good to see eBay is starting to test some more dramatic changes to search than we've seen in the past.
2. I've long thought that eBay's search engine is at its worst for these broad terms (ipod, nintendo wii, etc.) where there are so many listings that typically what you are looking for isn't in the first 20-50 results.
3. I've been criticizing eBay for not changing search enough in SR1 with SR2 they are ramping up the changes and this is another datapoint that they are starting to (finally!!)really tackle their biggest weakness.

Apple to complete with Paypal?

This article in Silicon Alley today caused lots of speculation around Apple (AAPL) entering the payments space. You have to admit it is interesting to think about the potential for Apple to come in and compete with Paypal. I like the iPhone aspect as well - what if you could pay for goods on and offline with it? They do this kind of stuff in Japan all the time and it hasn't worked it's way to the US because we lack the infrastructure. So to put it in perspective we have these companies currently competing or looking to compet with Paypal:

1. Google (GOOG) - Google Checkout is largely on hiatus right now, but could be an area Google revisits should it decide that e-commerce is important (Bing is going to force them there sooner rather than later.
2. Amazon (AMZN) - CBA (Checkout By Amazon) is alive and kicking and slowly being added to
3. Facebook - Is rumored to be expanding their 'virtual goods' payment system to other oline purchases. Boy wouldn't retailers love access to that user base?
   1. Within social, the social games are raking in the cash and they use a whole new class of payment system (good article here)
4. Twitter - In their leaked documents to TechCrunch, I found it interesting that one of the areas they were looking at is payments. FYI - there's already tweetpay.
5. Apple - Now we can put them on the list.

The only big internet name missing from this list is Microsoft/Yahoo!. With their new marriage and focus on ecommerce, a deeper partnership with Paypal or a competing system seems like an interesting option to pursue.

Disclosure - I am long Amazon and Google. eBay is an investor in ChannelAdvisor

Comments

[x_powerseller:]

Google, Apple or whoever. It really doesn’t matter who, as long as there will be someone to bring that beast (eBay corp.) to their knees!

The devil J.D. continues to abuse Ebay sellers, counting on PayPal to make up for the lost revenue.
We have left eBay months ago and eliminated PayPal from all our websites.


Speak up and fight back! EBay corporation should be investigated:


1. US Department of Justice (DoJ)
Anti Trust Division
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
E-mail: [e-mail]

How to submit a complaint:

www.usdoj.gov/atr/cont...


2. Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
Consumer Response Center
600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20580

Mission: The Federal Trade Commission is the nation's consumer protection agency. The FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection works For The Consumer to prevent fraud, deception, and unfair business practices in the marketplace.

The Bureau:

--Enhances consumer confidence by enforcing federal laws that protect consumers

--Empowers consumers with free information to help them exercise their rights and spot and avoid fraud and deception

--Wants to hear from consumers who want to get information or file a complaint about fraud or identity theft

To report a company for a pattern and practice of suspected fraud:

1-877-382-4357 1-877-382-4357

CAUTION: The FTC doe NOT resolve individual consumer complaints. Please confine your remarks whether verbal or written to ebay/PayPal policies you believe are illegal.

Online fraud complaint form:

www.ftccomplaintassist.../

3. Securities and Exchange Commission
SEC Complaint Center
100 F Street NE
Washington, D.C. 20549-0213

www.sec.gov/divisions/...

Above link includes information about insider trading and sending tips and complaints.

1. Insider trading: www.sec.gov/divisions/...
2. Tips and Complaints: www.sec.gov/complaint....

Online complaint forms: www.sec.gov/complaint/...

Hypthetically, if I were filing an SEC complaint, I'd strongly consider:

--False or misleading statements about a company (including false or misleading SEC reports or financial statements)

5. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA)
Chairman
House Energy and Commerce Committee
2204 Rayburn
House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Telephone [phone] [phone]
Fax [phone]

LOS ANGELES OFFICE
8436 West Third Street, Ste 600
Los Angeles, CA 90048
Telephone [phone] [phone]
Telephone [phone]
Telephone [phone]
Fax [phone]

waxman.house.gov/

6. Attorney General’s Office
California Department of Justice
Attn: Consumer Protection Division
P.O. Box 944255
Sacramento, CA 94244-2550
[phone] [phone]

ag.ca.gov/contact/comp...;B
R>
7. Attorney General's Office
2115 State Capitol
Lincoln, NE 68509

Consumer Protection Division: 800) 727-6432

Online complaint form:

www.ago.ne.gov/consume...
tm

Specific consumer complaints to the Attorney Generals against ebay/PayPal should be directed to the California and Nebraska Attorney general's Office Divison of Consumer complaints. Complaints could include PayPal holds on seller funds, ebay billing issues, PayPal confiscation of seller property, etc. PayPal complaints should be directed to both attorney generals' office, and ebay complaints shoul.d be sent to California.

General comments:

-- Emails and phone calls are fine, but SNAIL MAIL has more impact. PLEASE send all complaints with regular USPS mail.

-- When filing and mailing WRITTEN complaints, spring for an extra envelope and stamp and send a copy to the San Jose Better Bureau. Little will come of it, BUT ebay MUST file a written response.

-- Rep. Waxman has the ability to hold public hearings on the conduct of a business or industry. He has the power to subpoena executives past and present, past and present rank and file employees, and records. Consider the possibilities :-)

8. San Jose Better Business Bureau
1112 S. Bascom Ave.
San Jose, CA 95128
Phone: [phone] [phone]

9. Ebay operates in all 50 states. Therefore sending copies of complaints or filing directly with your state's attorney general's office will make a difference if they receive enough complaints. Your can find your attorney general and consumer protection
information by using a search engine using these keywords (Your state) Attorney General Consumer Protection.

Please post this information on every relevant website and blog -- especially TV news, newspaper, financial, and business media blogs and websites. This information should be posted in hundreds of location on a daily basis for maximum and persistent exposure.

Remember that certain corporations hire people to disrupt blogs and that includes spamming them to bury unwelcome messages.


----------
Credit: The above compiled information originally posted online by: Ming the Merciless

Aug 05 01:03 PM

[jahfrshas:]

hi

Aug 05 01:13 PM

[Jeff B.:]

I certainly hope someone comes along to knock PayPal down a couple of pegs. Except for Ticketmaster, I can not think of another consumer service that collects so much revenue for so little value, as Pay Pal does.

Aug 05 01:14 PM

[jack dee:]

Paypal has been a huge value to people moving small amounts of money around the world.

Aug 05 03:48 PM

[ebay_trustee:]

seekingalpha.com/autho...
Scot Wingo is the CEO of ChannelAdvisor.

Scot Wingo: "eBay is an investor in ChannelAdvisor"

Hook readers in with the "Is Apple Going to Compete with PayPal" but launch into pumping up your 16% partner EBAY. Another Scot Wingo ChannelAdvisor Bait & Switch advertising article.

Scot Wingo: "Google Checkout is largely on hiatus right now"

False. ChannelAdvisor offer Google Checkout to members?

Scot Wingo: "Facebook - Is rumored"

Missing something?

Impact Of Facebooks' Payment Platform On Virtual Goods
blog.viximo.com/corpor.../

Scot Wingo: Twitter "I found it interesting that one of the areas they were looking at is payments"

Ignoring existing systems are you not?

SocialCord creates payment platform platform for Twitter
venturebeat.com/2009/0.../

EBAY is dead in the water without PayPal's holding billions. In your best interest to slam and ignore the competition?

Aug 05 04:29 PM

[Philip Cohen:]

Quote: "The only big internet name missing from this list is Microsoft/Yahoo!. With their new marriage and focus on ecommerce, a deeper partnership with Paypal or a competing system seems like an interesting option to pursue."

What about Mastercard and Visa?

“Noise” Donahoe and some market analysts seem to believe that PayPal’s manning of the pumps will keep the steadily sinking ship “eBay” afloat. I certainly would not put my money on the “clunky” PayPal for the long term. Assuming that the parties don’t have some agreement to not compete, I have no doubt that eventually those other well known “loan sharks”, the major credit card companies, will get off their butts and introduce a similar universal card/terminal-less on-line payments system that the participating banks can incorporate into their internet banking systems—and they, at least, will do it properly—and that, my friends, will undoubtedly be the end of PayPal outside of the Donahoe-dwarfed eBay marketplace ...

I recall that Donahoe has been quoted somewhere as saying that the door is slightly ajar for a potential spinoff of his company’s online payments unit. If this is correct it will be the first logical thought that this guy has ever had; he otherwise clearly has no idea of what he is doing at eBay. If that MBA taught him anything then he should be using whatever skills he does possess to negotiate with the banks to take PayPal and integrate it into their online payments system—in exchange for an appropriate interest in the consolidated business, of course. Because, the more successful PayPal is, the more likely it is that the banks will finally get off their butts and introduce a like system; if and when that happens the banks will do the job properly and will exterminate PayPal for being the “irritating insect” that it is.

For eBay “watchers”, a detailed case study of shill bidding and the abuse of eBay’s proxy bidding system—all exacerbated by eBay’s introduction of “hidden bidders”—plus a detailed general criticism of eBay’s “clunky” auction platform and policies, at

<url>www.auctionbytes.com/f...;/url>

Buyers, and honest sellers, should read this case study so that they can be made aware, if they are not already so aware, of just how primitive and open to abuse is the eBay auction system.

A synopsis thereof:

 very little of the auction system security, that eBay claims to offer buyers, exists in fact;

 contrary to their claim, it can be demonstrated that eBay has no “sophisticated” nor “proactive” system in place for the detection of undisclosed vendor (“shill”) bidding and indeed appears to do nothing about such criminal activity except as a reaction to a user’s report of suspicious bidding activity;

 eBay appears to have no effective matter-of-course verification of users; unscrupulous users can apparently have as many user IDs as they may have email addresses;

 many of eBay’s “rules”, concerning the retraction of bids, cancellation of auctions, etc, are nominal only and are no bar to the machinations of the unscrupulous seller;

 as a result, eBay’s “proxy” bidding system is so open to abuse by such unscrupulous sellers that to use it, as eBay intends it to be used, can be an invitation to pay your maximum;

 by the lack of any such effectual security, eBay effectively, and knowingly, “aids and abets” unscrupulous shill-bidding sellers to defraud naïve buyers;

 the masking of bidding IDs with non-unique, absolutely anonymous aliases serves little other purpose than to obscure such shill bidding, and defeat any attempt at comprehensive analysis of individual bidding patterns to expose such activity;

 the quarterly changing of even these non-unique, absolutely anonymous, bidding aliases serves absolutely no other purpose than to stop even experienced eBay users from attempting to track suspicious bidding activity over time;

 the anonymous, individual bidder Bid History Detail pages, supposedly supplied to offset the absolute masking of bidding IDs, although better than nothing, can present an ambiguous view and, in such circumstances, are of dubious value;

 anyone naïve enough to “nibble” bid on a seller-elected “private” auction (ie, “User ID kept private”), on the balance of probability, is going to be defrauded;

 when suspected fraud [i]is[/i] reported, and is found by eBay to be proved to their satisfaction, eBay will conceal that fact from the victim of the fraud; this then is the concealing of a crime after the fact, surely, a crime in itself;

 eBay will never acknowledge to a victim that a fraud has been perpetrated, nor indeed will they acknowledge that such fraud is even a problem on eBay; eBay therefore sees no reason to provide any mechanism to aid in the recovery of any monies so defrauded;

 if eBay did have any truly sophisticated and proactive system in place for the detection and control of shill bidding, we would not now be having this debate; and

 for those buyers (and honest sellers) who do embrace eBay believing that eBay acts as an “honest broker” between buyer and seller, I can only say that there are fairies at the bottom of your garden too.

Aug 06 03:12 PM

[jack dee:]

Paypal has provided a cheap fast easy safe way to millions of people to send money home. It is used worldwide.

There are plenty of poorly informed punters here quick to slag it off, but in terms of REAL service Paypal has eased the lives of many with cheap methods for moving small amounts of cash.
Prior to this many people had to pay huge fees to money handlers who flew back witht monies but took a hefty cut to do it.

Aug 07 01:26 PM