eBay will no longer accept American Express payments
eBay will no longer accept American Express payments, citing the company’s fees as too high compared to other credit cards.
Online marketplace giant eBay has announced that it will no longer accept American Express, citing what the company says are “unacceptably high fees” and that customers have other payment options for shopping on the Internet.
eBay will not accept American Express payments and it is a notable blow to this credit company, whose customers are often the most attractive among merchants and the ones who spend the most money per month with their cards.
eBay will not accept American Express payments, and they have not been alone in taking similar steps.
Merchants are voicing their opposition to AmEx’s business practices by leaving the company, most notably the Costco department store chain nearly a decade ago.
“After careful consideration, eBay has decided to stop accepting American Express globally effective August 17 due to the unacceptably high fees charged by American Express for processing credit card transactions,” eBay spokesman Scott Overland said in a statement.
eBay will no longer accept American Express payments
Overland said eBay customers have become aware of new ways to pay for items, making payments more competitive than ever, and AmEx was no longer a necessary partner for eBay.
eBay has been increasingly offering customers options to buy now and pay later on purchases through Apple Pay, PayPal and other companies like Klarna and Affirm as well.
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“We know that the vast majority of eBay customers are willing to use alternative payment options to continue to enjoy buying and selling on our marketplace,” Overland said.
The fallout about the decision that eBay will not accept American Express payments must be awaited
In recent years, online merchants have become increasingly belligerent with payment processors over the fees they charge for accepting payments.
For its part, Amazon had a similar clash with Visa in the UK about two years ago, when it threatened to stop accepting Visa payments because of what it also described as high fees.
In the end, Visa and Amazon resolved their differences and there was no service disruption.
The fee varies from industry to industry, and the fees paid by larger merchants are often a closely guarded trade secret.
In a statement, American Express claims that eBay’s charge for accepting AmEx cards is “comparable to what eBay pays for similar cards on other networks” and that AmEx cardholders typically spend twice as much as on other networks.
