Sydney Morning Herald: eBay to accept cash and PayPal only, and this story has generated quite a lot of discussions everywhere. While it does not really impact me as I don’t really live on eBay, may I borrow the words from the infamous Jedi Knight — “I flt a great disturbance in the Force… as if millions of eBay sellers suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.“

Indeed. You pay once to have your goods inserted into eBay’s listing, you pay the second time when you sold the item, and now you will have to pay the third time when you receive the payment, if it is not a cash on delivery/pickup deal.

You do understand eBay’s motivation though. After all its job is to create a convenient market place and to provide maximum protection to the buyers… Oh wait, maybe they just want to maximise their profit. After all these eBay related deals, PayPal still haven’t caught up with wide-spread usage in Australia. Fine — they do what the monopolists do. How about making PayPal the exclusive payment method in one of the largest Internet marketplace?

As a buyer it does not make too much difference — yet. PayPal is convenient, and I love to have payment confirmed as soon as possible for quick delivery. But over time we will gradually see sellers adding cost to their price, especially low-margin products like cheap Chinese imports.

Is this the beginning of the end for eBay? Or is there any viable alternative?