Google vs. eBay/PayPal

That's Unpossible! writes "Google has today made a small announcement on their blog which could shake up the landscape of buying things online : they are going to start allowing certain parties to sell items through Google Base, which people can buy using credit cards linked to their Google Account. According to another blog post, Google already accepts payments in this fashion for Google Video, Google Earth, Google Store, etc. How long until Google Base is directly competing with eBay? The framework is now in place."

I, for one (seriously)

[coaxeus]

I, for one, welcome our new google overlords. Really. I was perfectly happy with paypal (aside from obsurd fees) until I had to dispute anything or required their customer service for anything. Paypal/Ebay is a nightmare to deal with, and will screw you over if anything anywhere in their pages and pages of small legal print says they can (it probably does in almost every situation). I'm right onboard with http://www.paypalsucks.com/ [paypalsucks.com] now.

Re:why is ebay singled out?

[Acid-Duck]

If you've looked at eBay, there is more then just the buy-it-now auction type. There are multiple auction types [ebay.com] depending on what type of items you're selling. As far as eBay being singled out, I admit there are other auction sites which are probably doing as good, but none of them are as well known to common luser as eBay. Now think about searchh engines... Doesn't Google feel that same type of way? even ppl who don't own computers know what google is. That's called visibility. Google going in the business of running an auction site, it has alot of visibility compared to other auction sites competing with eBay, not because it's better established (it's not even open yet, no customer-base) but because they're already getting lots of visits at their page b/c of their search engine services.

The conclusion is that you can offer the best product in the world but if you have no visibility to your target audience, you won't sell.

Erik

An alternative to PayPal would be very welcome

[Elad Alon]

Does anyone have any idea why Paypal wouldn't let me reset my account by e-mailing them scans of certain documents, requiring me to fax it to them instead? This is one reason why I may be switching to GooglePay - I'm not opening a new e-mail account so I can have a new PayPal account. I didn't forget my PayPal password, I just couldn't remember which of my many passwords it was, and I got locked out before I could guess the right one. Another e-mail account, another PayPal account - this will just get worse. So I'm kissing PayPal goodbye. Hey, I was a good customer for a long time, why wouldn't they just let me open a second account with the same e-mail? Only two accounts, clean history on the first - what's the problem? Also, their call center... Having to say out loud "yes/no" to a machine that somehow fails to get it, instead of the good tried-and-true method of pressing a button - what's the big idea? Couldn't you at least provide both options? Man, that thing hung up on me about five times, and they were all international calls. Also, I don't mind them outsourcing their call center to India, not being an American myself, but only when they can find people with clear enough accents, as far as their average customer is concerned. International call to the USA, then through not-broad-enough-band VoIP to India, then an unfamiliar accent... uncomfortable. (I actually love the Indian accent, but it's hard for me to understand what's being said.)

Re:I, for one (seriously)

[TheLink]

There are very good reasons for sessions to time out. How long did you take?

The transaction was probably deemed to have completed the moment the "label" was displayed on your screen.

So you should have just printed it out anyway. Print to a file or print to an actual A4. You can then either print to the real label later, or photocopy to the real label depending on whether you do the former or latter.

Or save the page to print it out later (which is why javascript or flash tends to suck for this sort of thing - you may not be able to print the stuff properly).