Not using Paypal is akin to buying heroin on the street
EBAY AUSTRALIA HAS firmly lodged its foot in its mouth, by comparing sellers who don’t use the Paypal option to heroin dealers.
At a "town hall" style meeting to discuss the fact that Ebay Australia will be scrapping all payment methods apart from Paypal, events went from bad to worse, with Ebay’s regional VP ending the evening with a comparison between people who didn't want to use PayPal and Junkies.
In April Ebay Australia announced that as of June, buyers would only be able to buy goods via the online commerce website Paypal, which just so happens to be owned by the online auction company.
Australians went hopping mad at the decision, which they saw as a ploy by Ebay to siphon off even more cash from user sales, to fill its overflowing coffers.
To try to appease some of the rage, Ebay decided to hold a meeting with sellers in Preston, Northern Melbourne. Regional VP Simon Smith, PayPal Australia MD Andrew Pipolo and trust and safety director Alastair MacGibbon were the execs chosen to head up Ebay’s panel, just asking for trouble by sitting under posters with the words "Making eBay even safer" and "practice safe shopping" emblazoned across them.
According to APC Mag, it all seemed to start out harmlessly enough, with Smith repeating the company mantra that Paypal was the most popular and safest option for buyers, and that keeping buyers happy would make them want to buy more stuff. This apparently didn’t go down too well with the crowd, but then Alastair MacGibbon decided to have a go.
MacGibbon, using a very random analogy, and responding to a question from a buyer who noted that she’d had nothing but good experiences from other payment methods, said, "I cross against the lights occasionally and I've never been hit by a bus, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea". As the boos filled the room and showed no signs of subsiding, MacGibbon stuttered "You can boo and hiss all you like, I can just tell you the simple facts."
But the ugliest part of the evening came in response to the question about why Ebay was taking freedom of choice away from the buyers. Smith, who attempted to answer the question, first fumbled around trying to make the point that many online shopping sites didn’t offer the luxury of choosing between bank transfers and credit cards, but when the crowd angrily rejected his initial explanation, Smith went on to say: "We're not allowing people to offer unsafe choices, just like in this democracy you can't go out and buy heroin on the streets"
EBAY AUSTRALIA HAS firmly lodged its foot in its mouth, by comparing sellers who don’t use the Paypal option to heroin dealers.
At a "town hall" style meeting to discuss the fact that Ebay Australia will be scrapping all payment methods apart from Paypal, events went from bad to worse, with Ebay’s regional VP ending the evening with a comparison between people who didn't want to use PayPal and Junkies.
In April Ebay Australia announced that as of June, buyers would only be able to buy goods via the online commerce website Paypal, which just so happens to be owned by the online auction company.
Australians went hopping mad at the decision, which they saw as a ploy by Ebay to siphon off even more cash from user sales, to fill its overflowing coffers.
To try to appease some of the rage, Ebay decided to hold a meeting with sellers in Preston, Northern Melbourne. Regional VP Simon Smith, PayPal Australia MD Andrew Pipolo and trust and safety director Alastair MacGibbon were the execs chosen to head up Ebay’s panel, just asking for trouble by sitting under posters with the words "Making eBay even safer" and "practice safe shopping" emblazoned across them.
According to APC Mag, it all seemed to start out harmlessly enough, with Smith repeating the company mantra that Paypal was the most popular and safest option for buyers, and that keeping buyers happy would make them want to buy more stuff. This apparently didn’t go down too well with the crowd, but then Alastair MacGibbon decided to have a go.
MacGibbon, using a very random analogy, and responding to a question from a buyer who noted that she’d had nothing but good experiences from other payment methods, said, "I cross against the lights occasionally and I've never been hit by a bus, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea". As the boos filled the room and showed no signs of subsiding, MacGibbon stuttered "You can boo and hiss all you like, I can just tell you the simple facts."
But the ugliest part of the evening came in response to the question about why Ebay was taking freedom of choice away from the buyers. Smith, who attempted to answer the question, first fumbled around trying to make the point that many online shopping sites didn’t offer the luxury of choosing between bank transfers and credit cards, but when the crowd angrily rejected his initial explanation, Smith went on to say: "We're not allowing people to offer unsafe choices, just like in this democracy you can't go out and buy heroin on the streets"