Wow! It takes either courage or ignorance to associate the word risk with a financial product in the current economic climate.

Propay is also targetting larger volume sellers. I personally feel that all of these “alternatives” are only designed to look good for the regulating bodies. While it is good to see the expansion of an Australian business, I am not feeling jubilant about any of the implications that Ebay currently holds for my international micro-business. That said, in spite of the current economic climate, I am overall getting very good sales at the moment.

Kind Regards, Kevin

Quotes –

Paymate managing director Dilip Rao says “I set up the company in 2000 just after the dot-com crash and struggled to get $350,000 together then. We’re used to running on the smell of an oily rag.”

Rather than targeting ad-hoc eBay sellers, Rao plans to aim his marketing efforts at those sellers with sales of $10,000 a month. “They are experienced, they understand risk and they will be able to see the value we add. We are not really seeking to sign up millions of clients.”

Paymate has also recently expanded into the Chinese market, where it is working with Alipay, part of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. The two companies recently launched Australia’s first Chinese/English online shopping mall, called Haiwaibao, to help Australian merchants sell to Chinese customers. “We’re starting to get traction on that,” Rao says.

Rao is hopeful eBay Australia may also decide to offer Paymate to customers. “I think that’s really their call. Every subsidiary makes its own decisions. But clearly if it’s good enough for eBay.com it should be good enough for eBay.com.au.”

- – - if he’s aiming only for $10k per month sellers, PayMate will not be a panacea for small sellers on eBay.com – be warned before being too jubilant – and remember in “The Australian” newspaper, he has confirmed the service will only be for Australian and US residents. Sellers in other countries cannot access it.

Ed

Paymate in the media – PayMate’s own list of other sites discussing them (very slick – I like it)

Ed