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EBay's `PayPal' payment service has Taiwan debut

EBay Inc, the world's largest Internet marketplace, yesterday introduced its PayPal payment-transfer service to local users, through which the company hopes to attract more users who can sell their products to 95 million eBay users worldwide.

PayPal, a subsidiary of eBay, is a service that enables individuals or businesses in 38 countries who have an e-mail address to send and receive payments online. Users need to apply for virtual accounts and deposit money using credit cards or transfers from a checking account at a traditional bank into PayPal before starting transactions. The system receives US dollars, Canadian dollars, euros, British pounds and Japanese yen.

"I think this convenient and secure transaction medium will boost local users' willingness to auction overseas, especially those small and medium enterprises intending to develop e-commerce," Jeffrey Noles, managing director of eBay Taiwan, told a press conference yesterday.

EBay, which opened online auction sites in 28 countries, conducted transactions worth more than US$23.8 billion last year, and 10 percent of the amount was from transnational deals, Noles said.

Taiwan should have large potential in accessing overseas markets via the Internet -- as long as the hassle with currency transactions and exchange rates can be simplified, Noles added, citing a survey showing that 85 percent of the company's Taiwanese members are interested in exporting their products.

The US-based company has about 200,000 goods posted on its Taiwanese Web site. Local users can post their auction items on any eBay Web site with their user ID to conduct transnational transactions.

Rival Yahoo-Kimo Inc (雅虎奇摩) refused to comment on eBay's new service, but said less than 5 percent of its users are willing to sell their products to foreign buyers, said Maureen Wu (吳曉嵐), associate public relations manager of Yahoo-Kimo. Yahoo-Kimo is Taiwan's largest online auctioneer with an average 3.4 million products posted on the local Web site.

Perhaps the major reason that most local users don't sell their products to foreign markets is the difficulty and expense of arranging shipping, said Sislley Yu (游婷喻), a PR official at the online-market research firm InsightXplorer (創市際).

An online auction user echoed Yu's point, saying that he has no plan to post his items on foreign auction sites, because the high postage may discourage bidders.

"Besides, I don't want to go through the hassle of bringing all my products to the post office just to check postal rates of different countries," said Tsai Chao-chen (蔡超塵), a Taipei resident who conducts transactions on both Yahoo-Kimo and eBay auction sites.

The online marketplace battle between the two companies has extended from Taiwan to China. Yahoo last month announced a partnership with China's largest Internet portal, www.sina.com (新浪) to challenge eBay, which became the largest online auctioneer in China after merging with Eachnet (易趣網).
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