It looks like the nearly two-decade-long relationship between eBay and PayPal has quietly come to a close.
On Monday, the auctioneering giant quietly updated its terms of service to let sellers know that pretty soon, any funds they rake in will no longer be credited to their PayPal account. If sellers want to keep getting paid, any funds will need to be deposited directly into their bank account.
“When eBay manages payments, you can sell and get paid in one place, on eBay, without a need to pay third party processing fees,” the company wrote in an FAQ about the update. What eBay neglects to mention is that these managed payments come with a brand new processing fee from eBay — $US0.30 ($0), plus a certain fraction of whatever price an item ultimately goes for. That said, the company’s promising sellers that whatever cut eBay ultimately takes will usually be lower than the roughly 13% they’re currently forking over to both eBay and PayPal combined.
On one website page explaining the new program, eBay noted that the deadlines for all users are “phased.” Some sellers are being told to swap out their PayPal login with the details from their checking account by midnight on June 1. Others, eBay says, will get communication from the company sometimes before the year’s end.
This news shouldn’t be too much of a shock to anyone that’s followed the eBay/PayPal saga up until this point. When PayPal was officially spun out from its longtime parent in 2015, it was with the agreement that it would keep managing payments for a five-year transition period. In the leadup to that fateful day, eBay began rolling out beta versions of an eBay-owned payment processor in 2018. Towards the end of last year, the company claimed that about 340,000 sellers were opted into eBay’s new payment platform.
Reviews so far are… mixed. Some sellers have complained that these new direct deposits can take up to a week instead of the two days that eBay’s been promising. Others have reported their deposits freezing altogether. Hopefully, eBay fixes that hiccup before Managed Payments become mandatory for everyone.