Just curious if anyone out there has used an alternative to eBay and Paypal and have found success with it / them?
Haha I just finished writing a nasty email to Paypal, because I added a debit card to my account, intending to close the old Citibank account linked to Paypal, but they kept charging the old Citibank account (in spite of messages appearing assuring me that they WOULD NOT) so now I have a mountain of overdraft fees from Citibank. Fuck You Paypal! I even said "if you didn't have a monopoly I'd close my account."
Man, the FU Paypal/ebay thread could be a forty page discussion on here in its own right. Ah, I still recall in the burgeoning days of the internet and ebaying, having to make regular trips to the bank to get US cash to send in envelopes. Of course, in those days, collecting also meant buying Star Wars toys for under five bucks. The system just works against you, as a seller and as a buyer. And they know it, but just don't give a FF. Just another case of a business that has been entirely built up into an industry but the average folks who use it, but get not one iota of respect for having done so.
You know I've used Paypal since 2002 and sure it sucks that they double dip via ebay but I look at that as more of ebay greed more than anything (as well as ebay buying Paypal). As far as innovating transferring money you can't really fault Paypal. Like Steve said- I can recall having to go to banks in NYC to get currency converted to pounds sterling and then mail it abroad to the UK for drum n bass records. Although I never got burned, it was incredibly risky stuff that I never even think of doing these days. Paypal has always been good to me. They've never sided against me in 4-5 disputes I've had (and I haven't had one since 2009 I think), their reps are super friendly to me and always take care of any concerns I have. Is it a necessary evil? Yep. Should they have a monopoly like they do? Probably not. I've been a seller and a buyer and I think it's pretty fair, all things considered. I can't think of a more secure way to transfer money and have it accepted globally.
Truly. Nevermind opening up the market, if YJA wanted to improve themselves, it would not lack for plenty of other models it could incorporate.
My two main easily-fixable YJA pet peeves: 1) Bidding on something basically subscribes you to twenty of their utterly useless newsletters. To which you have to unsubscribe manually, one by one... Until it subscribes you again. 2) Their notifications are basically pages and pages of ads and junk with the pertinent information buried somewhere roughly in the middle. Oh and isn't there a monthly fee to bid on items over 5000yen? (Have to unsubscribe!) Anyone knows why there is no eBay.jp? I know they closed it in 2002, but you'd think it's so much more user-friendly people would use it now?
Those are on a list of many for me Oli. The 'premium' membership has got to be one of the worst things though. That cost is completely needless, and if anything, should be waived if you spend more than 5000yen a month. I would also add the payment process as being a principle beef for me, but then, that is also largely a consequence of the ingrained system there. Even though paypal.jp exists, it is about as active as ebay.jp. Sure, banks can do electronic transfer, but 300yen each time(?!) and even that is not a simple issue.
ebay tried and failed to make inroads in Japan. Yahoo Japan Auction IS the ebay of Japan, ebay closed shop because they could not compete. Years ago we discussed this here, and there was talk of a yahoo/ebay partnership rumor that would make it easier for people over here to bid on YJA and vice versa with Japanese to bid on ebay (not like they couldn't already) but it never materialized. Another big obstacle is sellers in Japan don't want to ship overseas, not to mention the whole middleman cottage industry that would basically become obsolete.
Yeah their payment process is awful! Yahoo Keizai is ok-ish (even if it restricts you to Japanese credit cards and bank accounts), but to basically have to trade a bunch of messages with the sellers before being able to complete the transaction... Shouldn't this be automated? With the PP/eBay integration, it's seamless and takes all of 20 seconds. As for eBay.jp vs YJA, I know what you're saying Chris, but in the 12 years since they closed, I can't believe the market hasn't changed a bit. The Japanese people I know all hate YJA too but are stuck with it. Even Rakuten is better, so it's not like there is no competition already. I buy lots from the Amazon.co.jp marketplace too, and no problem there either! As for Japanese people being unwilling to ship oveseas (or I'd argue to simply deal with foreigners...), yeah, that could be it. But again, Rakuten have an international section that isn't half bad. I of course don't have numbers, but it seems like a lot of us buy from Mandarake too. Their mail people can definitely be a pain to deal with but... They really just don't seem to want to make money... It's sadly hard to think of a more isolated industrialized country in this day and age.
