eBay Adds Venmo To Available Payment Options For Buyers
UPDATE 6-13-24
It's official - eBay has announced Venmo is now an available payment option for US buyers at checkout.
Buyers Love Venmo on eBay — It's Fast, Secure, and Social
Once buyers have linked their Venmo account to their eBay account, they can sail through checkout without manually entering their payment details in subsequent transactions.After completing a purchase with Venmo, buyers can choose to share the payment in the Venmo feed bringing more awareness to the ability to pay with Venmo on eBay.
Buyers can also shop with confidence knowing eligible payments are covered by Purchase Protection in the event there’s an issue with their purchase.
The move comes after eBay announced last week it will be cutting ties with American Express in August, citing "unacceptably high fees" for processing credit card transactions.
Liz Morton
eBay appears to be testing allowing Venmo as a payment option for some purchases as they look to enhance the payments experiences for both buyers and sellers.
The inclusion of Venmo as an option at checkout was spotted by an eagle-eyed commenter in the r/Flipping subreddit.
"Bought something today and was surprised to see ebay is now accepting venmo. Limited roll out?"
Other commenters guessed the move might be a reaction to Amazon dropping Venmo earlier this year, causing a notable drop in parent company PayPal's stock price at the time.
Liz Morton
Others say they are not seeing Venmo offered as a payment method yet, which is not surprising as eBay often does limited testing or slow, phased rollouts for new features and functionality.
I was able to confirm the presence of Venmo in the checkout process using one account and can also confirm the same item when added to cart on a different account did not show it, suggesting it is being shown based on specific user account criteria rather than item, category or price qualifications.
eBay may also be looking to make some changes and introduce new payment and financial services with new survey asking for sellers' thoughts on funds availability, fee structures, access to capital and other features.
Liz Morton
The introduction of Venmo could be part of eBay's efforts to bring more casual buyers and sellers to the platform and encourage local pickup as many users may already be using Venmo for purchases from other sites like Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist.
Sellers recently noticed a test or glitch adding options for cash, check or money orders to the listing form), which suggests eBay may be looking to streamline the payment process for local pickup options.
eBay Lokal was launched in Germany last year with new features to promote local buying and selling through the platform at the same time they dropped selling fees for private sales and discontinued the ability for sellers to accept cash for local pickup transactions.
Liz Morton
CEO Jamie Iannone has been touting the success of these consumer to consumer (C2C) focused efforts in Germany and eBay is clearly looking to adapt those strategies to other markets as well, like with the "fix the fundamental aspect of UK Win back plan" aimed at boosting consumer and small business sales to grow GMV in that region and a marketing and strategy pivot for the US as well.
Liz Morton
What do you think of eBay adding Venmo as a payment option for buyers? Let us know in the comments below!
