eBay to Phase Out 3rd Party Checkout
eBay annouced that it is to phase out 3rd party checkout.
This is a move that will impact many thousands of (usually large) eBay sellers.
It will affect us, as we use ChannelAdvisor, as do many larger sellers. ChannelAdvisor’s main markets are US and UK, and they have some very big eBay sellers using their systems.
For us, ChannelAdvisor offers the ability to:
- manage inventory and SKUS
- manage listings/ads templates
- automatically schedule and maintain ads in eBay (and soon, Trading Post)
- capture customers
- upsell on checkout
- sell into other channels like Shopping.com, Getprice
- have an online store
I was thinking about how the eBay decision to remove 3rd party checkout would affect us.
We don’t get too many upsells in checkout (where a customer can add another item to their sale on the way through payment) so there will be little impact there.
One thing it will stop is the ability to capture customers from eBay. We offer newsletter signup on the way through checkout (which can be incentivised if you like), and also promote the ability to visit our online store to buy from a wider range of items. eBay customers are not easy to convert. They tend to like shopping on eBay, and buying at auction.
Both of these things, although not contributing greatly immediately, offer some long term benefit as you grow a customer base. And you can pick up eBay customers in your mailing list and get them to buy direct. Many sellers do it, and if you aren’t you should be.
All this decision does is provide us even more incentive to grow our business outside of eBay, in more cost effective sales channels. We have received some sales from Tradingpost.com.au auctions already, and although the turnover is slow there at the moment the cost of sale is very appealing.
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Comments
Yes,
This decision will impact a lot of sellers. To counter this, I would love to see some better tools to market to eBay mailing lists. Their current amil system is a little clunky.
And they are cracking down on things in Australia like phone numbers and email addresses in listings shortly too apparently.
Just quietly, we get a nice number of visitors from people seeing our customer service email address, and typing our URL straight into the browser URL bar from product pages. And we get some good sales from this.
Spread your wings!
I believe they are now planning to anonymize pre-sale ASQs(remove e-mail addresses) as part of their drive to keep buyers on the site.
As a buyer just let me say that I absolutely hate 3rd part checkouts
I always try to avoid using 3rd party checkout whenever possible – even if I have to pay a bit more – some aren’t too bad but others are real pains. It is a waste of my time and effort. If you want info about me, write me and ask, don’t force me to enter information for you to use for your own purposes.
An old business addage – If one customer complains it means that 99 others probably had the same complaint and didn’t go to the trouble tell you
Mike,
Thanks for your comments. “I always try to avoid using 3rd party checkout whenever possible – even if I have to pay a bit more”. I wouldn’t think anyone would charge you more for using a 3rd party checkout!
The idea of the better checkouts is that they save you the customer, and me the seller time. 3rd party checkouts often offer better order process, better communication with the customer, and (historically) possibly more payment options.
Also, the systems that we have used automatically pull in your registered eBay delivery address (so you don’t have to type it in), and any ‘extra’ info, like subscribing to a newsletter is totally optional.
I can only speak for us though, maybe you are right and there are other checkouts out there that are more time consuming and request more information. I think eBay is trying to tighten up the requirements for 3rd party, and hopefully some of these less attractive and functional checkouts will be disallowed in future…
I hate third party checkouts for three reasons:
1) Don’t trust em. Seems like every time I get a third party checkout, it’s yet another new company I’ve never heard of, asking for my personal information. My instinct as a consumer is to flee as fast as possible.
2) They’re ugly, and cumbersome. They want all kinds of extraneous information, repeats of information that eBay already has but isn’t providing, opt-outs for their spam services, etc, etc. I’ve already given eBay my shipping info and payment info, Paypal will provide that info when I pay, why do I need to fill it all out yet another time for the seller’s convenience?
3) Ads, ads, ads. I hate ads. Today my Channeladvisor-powered purchase sent me off to yet another third party site that had a woman’s voice urging me to sign up for their newsletter and see their other fabulous offers. There is NOTHING I hate more than voice-ads on a website. Because of that one thing alone, I will NEVER, EVER purchase another item from that seller, and will also never purchase from another seller that uses Channeladvisor if possible.
The good news is that eBay have restricted the number of 3rd party checkout systems to only a handful.
It’s a pity that some sellers try and ram things like email subscriptions and auto start audio (yuk!!) down your throat. But the good thing about the ‘net is that you don’t ever have to go back if you don’t want.
eBay’s checkout is fine, but in my experience as a seller, a good third party checkout can not only help my business grow, but also be a nice experience for customers.
Removing 3rd party checkout (aka checkout redirect) is a big deal.
I can understand that the buyer experience is confusing, but it removes opportunities to upsell and acquire your own customers, as you point out.
I think the recent announcements from eBay (this one, PayPal only or mandatory, listing description restrictions) show a trend of putting up walls around their business – trying to stop any possible leakage of fees.