gioscinelli 

Curious as to members comments about the up and coming separation of Ebay spinning off Paypal and how this will affect selling on Ebay. Since there would be no direct connection to Paypal account, how will Ebay protect the buyer or seller? This will also make paying through other means, it opens up competition when completing the auction, hopefully!

daf1009

Paypal is simply a channel for eBay anyway...so...there will be other channels and probably up to the seller as to whether to accept those or not. In today's environment (prior to the split), there are still other channels that a buyer/seller can use...if it is local, you can do cash; there is always a money order/check/etc. channel as well...and eBay protection does extend into those, although it is a bit clunkier, as they cannot just directly take the money from a seller's account (although most sellers have a Paypal and it may be required for a seller to have a Paypal account, so they can STILL do it that way)

It will be interesting, but I do not foresee a ton of real changes...other than maybe having an ApplePay or something come into the space...

repechage

PayPal was at one time independent until eBay saw it would be more profitable to own them.
As I recall, way back a paypal account was not required. PayPal was an option and not de facto.
eBay has decided for shareholder value and probably to attempt to make PayPal more widely used that they will spin it off, I fully expect eBay to own a majority of the stock. Apple pay is seen I suspect as a threat.
Those PayPal credit options that I ignore ( you have it or don't buy it) might vanish or get more expensive.

oddjob2

Ebay And PayPal To Split: Carl Icahn And Elon Musk Wish Comes True - Forbes

gpburdell

Seller/buyer protection existed before ebay bought paypal in 2002, though I forget the specific details. I vaguely remember that as a seller you had to have a credit card on file or something akin to that, but again it's been quite a while and I don't recall the specifics. (I've been using ebay since 2000)

eBay's page states: "You can keep using PayPal on eBay just like you do today; that won't change. Your purchases are still protected through our buyer protection programs"

I imagine the same cautions will continue to apply; tread very carefully buying high-demand/high-value items from a new seller or one whose prior auction pattern doesn't match the items offered. A 20-feedback sellers account that'd sold a few knitting patterns but suddenly started a dozen auctions for laptops and iphones at too-good-to-be-true prices might be worth avoiding...

wphamilton

This will be beneficial for the sellers and buyers on the site, and even better for PayPal. Even though PayPal may have benefited from requiring site users to accept Paypal, and it was in the view of many anti-competitive and (in their view) illegal in some countries with stronger consumer protection laws, Paypal also has to compete in the broader market. The more competitive market will in the long run be beneficial.

Most of your tangible buyer protections come from Paypal, and if anything they are stronger and more objective outside of the auction site so I wouldn't be concerned about that.

crank_addict

Good! Around the holidays, somehow had erroneous activity tied to PP. Took quite an effort to sort out and was advised to not use for awhile or create a new one. Very aggravating.

BTW: I forget what year they established but was one of the early adopters (less then 150,000 users at the time). Comical because whatever volume I was doing, they sent a thank you note and an official PP t-shirt.

jgscisum 

Ok........ people with better memories than mine......... I was one of the first PayPal members even before it was called PayPal and long before PayPal and Ebay came together. What was the name???? I assume is was purchased and changed to PayPal. Less than a year ago I tossed the old agreements and info about the earlier company. Correct me if I'm mistaken.

wphamilton

It was always PayPal. As I recall it was 1999 or in 2000 I think when I first heard of it - my wife was selling a little bit so I had her set up an account (she was wary of PayPal LOL) and coded up a shopping cart. The key being self-hosted cart, which meant someone could combine their purchases from the auction site and also the merchant site I also set up for her ... which meant up-selling and cross-selling at the point of checkout. The auction site saw that as potential revenue for them and one of the reasons (in general, not for my little fees) to purchase PayPal to begin with. Eliminate anything off-site by hosting the payment process and requiring it. We got out before they completed that integration scheme though. It remains to be seen whether they'll retain the current payment gateway restrictions or open it up again.

himespau 

I get what PayPal gets out of it, but it seems like eBay will be putting itself at risk by losing a big profit center. I felt the same when GM got rid of GMAC though.

noglider 

Generally speaking, I don't like mergers, and I like splits. This looks like a good thing to me.

wphamilton

@himespau I don't know what they're doing of course, but I have seen regulatory burdens added due to the banking or banking-type and credit operations. I doubt that's it though.

You remember that there was a huge fight between investor Icahn, who wanted PayPal split off and CEO Donahoe. Donahoe "won" and Icahn got control of a board seat. Maybe since then, between the competitive threats of Alibaba starting their payment system, Apple's movement into payments, PayPal's executive leaving, Icahn himself and the fact that PayPal is becoming the tail wagging the dog, perhaps they had no choice.

rms13

Yeah exactly. When I first became a ebay and Paypal customer they were separate. The only difference I have seen since they merged was more paypal integration into the ebay website.

RobbieTunes 

I can't see how it will save anyone any money.
My comment, therefore, is phooey.

crank_addict

Did you get a t-shirt? LOL

Anyways, those early years were unregulated as technically they were not considered a bank.

cb400bill

Per our friends at Wikipedia:

PayPal was initially established in December 1998 as Confinity,[12] a company that developed security software for handheld devices[13] founded by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek, and Ken Howery.[12][14] PayPal was developed and launched as a money transfer service at Confinity in 1999, funded by John Malloy from BlueRun Ventures.[15][16]

thinktubes 

Now we'll have twice as many pointless rant threads....