PayPal to acquire Bill Me Later … later
By Ed | October 7th, 2008 | Category: BillMeLater, Pay Online, PayPal, eBay US, eCommerce | No Comments »The blogosphere is alive with talk of eBay Inc acquiring instant credit provider and payments service Bill Me Later. In fact everyone is jumping the gun a little …
The official PayPal Blog and the announcement from PayPal President Scott Thompson states, “Today, eBay reached a definitive agreement to acquire Bill Me Later. ” and continues, “We expect the deal to close by the end of the year.“ Therefore the deal is not yet closed, but should be before the end of Q4. This means the purchase will be made in the quarter when eBay have the highest revenues, but is announced immediately before what is shaping up to be a disappointing 3rd quarter financial result. An earnings warning has already been issued via the eBayInk blog – apparently results are at the bottom end of earlier forecasts.
For sellers, this means the service will not be available as an authorised payment method during the pre-Christmas peak season. Even if it were, then like PayPal’s own Pay Later facility, it would only be available to North American buyers. So, for the rest of the world, like the Baseball World (sic) Series, it’s a non-story. Move along non-Americans … nothing for you to see here.
Try spending my fees on something of use to me please eBay.
Ed
Update - apologies to everyone, in the original posting I kept referring to Bill Me Later as Pay Me Later – early senility showing itself? I’ve now corrected where appropriate.
