Today’s way back is funny because its the first one where I still agree 100% which what I said back then (though this is a more recent post than some of these). In fact, there have been several posts on this blog that have made these same arguments before.

Of course, now PayPal is mandatory so while this was pure speculation back then, now we have it as the reality.

Now, the original post entitled eBay US goes PayPal only? from May 22nd, 2008:

eBay posts overload lately, I know. Sorry about it for you non-eBay people but a lot of stuff is happening very fast.

AuctionBytes is reporting that eBay is seriously considering changing the US eBay site over to PayPal only. As I briefly touched on in this post, I actually think this is a really good idea.

Yes, I see your monopoly arguments and understand that you don’t want to have to pay fees. But I also know that the cold fact of the matter is that almost no one pays by money order or personal check anymore. I still offer it as an option only because I don’t want to exclude anyone from bidding because of their payment preferences but it’s a dying payment form.

That said, PayPal is so much easier for a seller (the instant clearing payment, not having to wait for the mail or the check to clear, the protection they offer sellers in the event the sale goes bad) and has such a higher success rate that its worth any fees they want to charge me for that convenience. I cannot think of a single deadbeat bidder in the last two years who didn’t promise payment by postal mail. People who pay by PayPal pay sooner and the transaction is overall faster. I consider the fees to be part of the cost of my business. Does that mean that I am eager for them to raise the prices? Of course not. But if they have more volume of sales going through PayPal, they likely won’t need to raise the prices.

For buyers, PayPal is a much better options. Unlike a check which takes time to clear or a money order which costs around $1 or more in fees, PayPal is free for the buyer to use and let’s then pay with their balance, checking account or even credit card if they wish. We are a country of debt and lots of people are spending money that they don’t have. It may sound cold but if they are going to spend money that they don’t have anyway, at least let them spend it on what I am selling. Not to mention that most of the time it allows me to have their payment and ship their item in less than 24 hours.

In summation, I have been itching for a long while now to only offer PayPal as my only accepted payment method but I haven’t for fear of insulting the few people who still cling to the old payment methods. If eBay makes PayPal mandatory, it makes that so much easier for me because then I can offer the method I would rather be offering and buyers wouldn’t complain because it would be the standard.