PayPal no longer has a monopoly on eBay payment systems. The online retailer is officially exploring other options, and soon, you’ll be able to buy home appliances, clothes, or even cars on eBay using Apple Pay. The announcement comes a few months after eBay revealed that it would be managing the end-to-end payments flow on its own platform in an effort to improve the buying and selling process on the site, and come early fall, buyers should be able to use Apple Pay to purchase items from participating sellers. Apple Pay will be an option on both Apple iOS and Safari, and both the eBay mobile app and mobile web.
“Apple Pay is one of the most ubiquitous forms of payments and provides users with an easy, fast and secure way to pay,” said Steve Fisher, senior vice president of payments at eBay. “Offering Apple Pay as a form of payment on eBay is the first step in providing more choice and flexibility in payment options to our tens of millions of buyers.”
Throughout 2019, eBay will continue to offer additional payment options, and by 2021, the retail behemoth expects to have transitioned most of its Marketplace customers to a new and (hopefully) improved payments experience.
“Managing the end-to-end payments experience on eBay’s Marketplace is a key initiative for the company. As we expand our new payments experience over the coming months, we look forward to offering our global customers many other forms of payments on our platform,” Fisher continued.
Initially, a small group of Marketplace customers will be privy to the first part of Apple Pay’s rollout, so don’t expect Apple Pay to be ubiquitous across eBay quite yet. That said, the company is certainly hoping to onboard a growing number of customers in the near future, and Apple Pay is likely just the first of many payment options. The benefit of an integrated platform are numerous — for one thing, eBay customers won’t have to sign into another service just to check out, and the availability of numerous payment processors will likely mean lower processing charges.
Additionally, eBay will be working alongside Square’s financing service thanks to a partnership with Square Capital. Under the new agreement, eBay sellers can apply for loans of between $500 and $100,000 in order to help their business. This option, for now, will only be available to select U.S. customers.
