auctionace
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posted on May 1, 2003 05:52:12 PM new
Partially? The new Buy It Now or BIN has a mandatory payment by PayPal. The AuxPal or now renamed Bidville had that payment setup in place with PayPal until the very last minute when PayPal backed out. The following lawsuit by Mr. Orlando has apparently been settled. Now ebay owns PP and sets up a payment sysyem on some auctions that is identicle to the one proposed and accepted by PP 30 months ago.
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Do you think Orlando settled too soon?
***Coming Soon: Optional Immediate-Payment Method for Buy It Now Items***
In the next two weeks, we will introduce a new payment option that provides buyers with a convenient, retail-like purchasing experience. It also helps reduce the likelihood that a Buy It Now item will be ended by a buyer who does not intend to pay, making it unavailable to a buyer who really wants it.
If the seller chooses to use this payment option, buyers will see a notation next to the Buy It Now button stating that the seller requires immediate payment. After clicking the Buy It Now button, the buyer will be asked to complete payment through PayPal, which handles credit cards, PayPal funds, and other instant payment methods. Once the payment is confirmed, the listing will officially end. Until a buyer completes the payment, the listing will continue to run.
This feature will initially appear in the Tickets & Experiences categories (where payment is often time-critical) and the Media categories: Books, Movies & Television, and Music (where the demand for retail-like convenience is high).
This option can be applied by sellers on a per-item basis to listings with Buy It Now and to Stores items. Sellers who choose to require "immediate payment" must have a PayPal Premier or Business account so they can accept credit card payments. Shipping and all other costs must be provided when the item is listed so that buyers know exactly what to pay without having to wait for seller instruction.
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toollady
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posted on May 1, 2003 06:36:17 PM new
The terms of the original agreement (that was breached) were never spelled out publically. Is it possible Auxpal/Bidville was to get funding from PayPal in exchange for PayPal owning a piece of Bidville?
If that is the case and the original plan was put into place, wouldn't Ebay, by virtue of purchasing PayPal, now own a chunk of Bidville?
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blairwitch
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posted on May 1, 2003 07:14:05 PM new
The AuxPal or now renamed Bidville had that payment setup in place with PayPal until the very last minute when PayPal backed out. The following lawsuit by Mr. Orlando has apparently been settled.
First there was never any proof that paypal backed Orlando to begin with, and second there was never any lawsuit that went to trial. Paypal has to make any such suits public, and it never happened. When Orlando finally fell to defeat he vanished. A lesson to be learned here is never build a site without a signed contract. Hand-shake deals mean nothing in a court of law. The judge most likely dismissed it.
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auctionace
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posted on May 1, 2003 07:19:08 PM new
I don't think Orlando needed any money as he had all of the computer servers left over from his previous web sites ( nobidding.com and PlanetBeanie.com or whatever that earlier site was called ).
Another BV recent change with PP is the dropping of Bidville as an auction site choice when paying at PayPal. It is still there but is now two clicks away instead of one as a buyer has to hit Other Auctions to find it. Ebay may have thrown BV a bone and placed them on the auction sites payable at PayPal for a limited time ( one year? ) as part of any court settlement and as soon as the time period expired they made BV harder to find on the PP site and started the PP only BIN as well.
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bonecollector
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posted on May 1, 2003 11:21:17 PM new
Paypal settled the dispute by placing Bidville in their menu, and whatever else was decided on out of court. Do you think they placed Bidville in their menu out of the goodness of their hearts? That's naive considering they were at legal odds with each other at the time it appeared. If anyone had to make concessions it was Paypal, not Orlando. And, Paypal is the one being absorbed by the eblob while Bidville remains steady as a rock.
When all is said and done the only auction site using Paypal will be the great almighty ebay. A monopoly can do anything it wants to do with no ill effect on its own business, and no accountability when their decisions affect a whole industry. That's why monopolies are frowned upon in our society.
Those who think ebay is wonderful should think about how you would be held hostage to their services if all other sites were to fail.
I wouldn't give a plug nickle for paypal or ebay. To me, it's a marriage made in heaven.
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auctionace
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posted on May 1, 2003 11:35:34 PM new
When all is said and done the only auction site using Paypal will be the great almighty ebay. A monopoly can do anything it wants to do with no ill effect on its own business, and no accountability when their decisions affect a whole industry. That's why monopolies are frowned upon in our society.
I don't think you get it. You're right about the monopolies being frowned on by society though.
This latest gambit by ebay quasi-forces or coerces more sellers and buyers to sign up and use PayPal. This is very similar to MicroSoft's Internet Explorer crushing the Netscape Navigator browser. There are a few diehards that still cling to Netscape but the vast majority of internet users now use the IE browser because of MicroSoft's gile and gall. 70% usage of PayPal on ebay wasn't good enough for ebay so now they want to increase that percentage.
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uaru
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posted on May 2, 2003 06:31:48 AM new
bonecollector And, Paypal is the one being absorbed by the eblob while Bidville remains steady as a rock.
How steady do you think Bidville would remain if "eblob" was to offer $1,500,000,000.00 to absorb them. PayPal came at an expensive price and eBay's wasn't the first offer that came along.
auctionace This latest gambit by ebay quasi-forces or coerces more sellers and buyers to sign up and use PayPal. This is very similar to MicroSoft's Internet Explorer crushing the Netscape Navigator browser.
That alone can't sell a product. Remember BillPoint? BillPoint was intergrated into eBay (for obvious reasons.) When new sellers registered with eBay they were lead to a BillPoint account registration also and auctions carried BillPoint by default if you had an account. eBay isn't selling PayPal anywhere near as hard as they attempted to sell BillPoint. BillPoint failed in spite of all the marketing advantages it had.
There's still an occasional David out their able to kick Goliath's butt. In this case PayPal was David and eBay was Goliath.
Bidville ain't no David.
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bonecollector
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posted on May 2, 2003 07:16:13 AM new
Paypal is established and has a customer database that would impress even ebay. Billpoint fell through because people don't like to be forced into things. Microsoft won't share the source code and ebay won't be sharing paypal in the future, at least not without a steep price.
Speculation means nothing. Paypal is absorbed, Bidville's still there. This is not an Auxpal situation because bidville was to partner with paypal, not control them. Ebay is all about control. If you want to be controlled that's your problem.
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uaru
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posted on May 2, 2003 07:34:30 AM new
bonecollector ebay won't be sharing paypal in the future.
next paragraph
Speculation means nothing.
Just in case you do feel like 'speculating' there's some things to consider. PayPal's getting 1/3rd (32% according to Q1-03) of their revenue from sources outside of eBay. Why would eBay throw that revenue away? What possible gain could be made from such a manuver?
On July 8th, 2002 when eBay announced the plans to purchase PayPal. The next day online psychics all predicted the changes for PayPal: eBay use only, higher fees, no more personal accounts, no more cash-back incentives. Not a single psychic has been proven right so far.
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auctionace
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posted on May 2, 2003 08:36:48 AM new
Ebay tried to unseat PP with BillPoint. It failed and then bought PP. All over the internet you now see the PayPal logo on websites. I think it's non-ebay use will grow at a feverish pace and the majority of PP use will be from non-ebay use. Ebay knows the online auction craze will not last forever and bought Half.com and PP to diversify a bit. Ebay is trying very hard to push BIN or Fixed price listings. The true auction segment of ebay may soon be very small and ebay will be a big WalMart online with fixed prices and instant checkouts and guaranteed goods. ( that'll the next thing ebay forces on sellers -- the PP guarantee of delivery of goods ).
Bidville is still standing but their recent sales have lower and lower STRs. That may be the result of the weak economy or it may be something else. Ebay is like Walmart and BV is a like mom-and-pop store. There will always be those that prefer to shop at the small store rather than the monster store.
P/S ... MiscroSoft is starting to share it's source code
http://www.itnews.com.au/storycontent.cfm?ID=17&Art_ID=11838
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blairwitch
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posted on May 2, 2003 10:06:17 AM new
Paypal settled the dispute by placing Bidville in their menu, and whatever else was decided on out of court. Do you think they placed Bidville in their menu out of the goodness of their hearts?
Once again there was NO settlement. Paypal has to file ALL suits against them, and any settlement would have been reported in the media. Paypal put bidville on the list for one reason, and that was profit. The same reason all the other sites were listed as well. Orlando built a site with no written agreement and that is very poor business.
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bonecollector
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posted on May 2, 2003 10:17:41 AM new
Bill Gates is smart! He's sharing the source code with his partner's and any improvements they make he gets to keep free of charge. He's sharing it, but it isn't free. Using Paypal outside of ebay probably isn't going to be free either.
If Mr. Orlando's business plans were that poor Bidville wouldn't exist. Auction sites come and go. Bidville is still there 
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auctionace
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posted on May 2, 2003 10:44:53 AM new
BW, what about all the press two years ago about the lawsuit?
Such as:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/pages/abn/y01/m07/i12/s01
I don't think BV was bluffing.
BV is a very good place to store and sell items that would be very difficult to sell on ebay because of the intense competition and insertion fees. I personally think ioffer is a better place to do the same type of thing because of its free store with shopping cart and no $10 year fee but it has not been around as long as BV so it could be more vulnerable to suddenly closing than BV.
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blairwitch
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posted on May 2, 2003 11:22:49 AM new
auctionace, you give me one link to a story where paypal settled and I will take everything I ever said about bidville back.
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auctionace
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posted on May 2, 2003 11:29:36 AM new
The reason cases or lawsuits are settled out of court is to keep it out of the public record. For instance the PP legal team could have given BV $50,000 to drop the suit. Nowhere would you ever see a record of that and PP would bury it on their yearly records as a legal expense. It is possible BV's lawyers gave up too. 
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blairwitch
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posted on May 2, 2003 12:49:00 PM new
Good spin, but not good enough. Keep trying.
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bonecollector
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posted on May 2, 2003 12:56:58 PM new
One spin is as good as another, and auctionace is spinning in the more logical direction.
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auctionace
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posted on May 2, 2003 04:11:03 PM new
Spin - Smin. It's the truth. Settling out of court allow both parties to save face and legal fees. Most court cases are settled out of court.
We'll never know what the actual settlement was or if Orlando merely gave up.
The original question in intial post in this thread was Do you think Orlando settled too soon?
If Orlando had held out or gone through with this case I doubt that PayPal would now be doing the very thing proposed by Orlando ( either verbally or contractually ). PP backed out and then did the same on their own site 30 months later. If there was no settlement then Orlando should try his luck again. This could be like the current patent infringement lawsuit against ebay that is now going on.
Oooo --- maybe Orlando's lawyers should have patented the idea of 'PP use only' on an auction site! I shouldda be a frggin' lawyer. ( and maybe someone else shouldaa been a doctor )
[ edited by auctionace on May 2, 2003 04:27 PM ]
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blairwitch
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posted on May 2, 2003 06:05:40 PM new
We'll never know what the actual settlement was or if Orlando merely gave up.
Sure we know....nothing, and yes he gave up. Ok since this was "settled" next subject please.
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auctionace
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posted on May 2, 2003 07:54:43 PM new
Orlando wouldn't give up but his lawyers probably did. 40% of nothing is nothing. They wanted a quick score and got nothing but a tiny bit of publicity and legal bills.
Remember the famous Orlando quote "We couldn't buy publicity like this".
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