eBay is moving to an electronic Checkout system, banning checks, money orders and postal orders, and more than half of sellers believe it would negatively impact their profitability, according to an AuctionBytes.com survey.

Beginning in late October, eBay will limit acceptable payment methods to merchant credit card accounts, ProPay, and PayPal (eBay's own payment service).

AuctionBytes conducted a survey of readers in August to solicit their thoughts on possible changes to eBay's accepted payments policy. When asked, should eBay move to an electronics payment only marketplace (specifically, limiting sellers to PayPal, ProPay and their own credit-card merchant accounts), 75% of survey respondents said no; 17.4% said yes; and 7.6% said I don't know.

When asked, if eBay became an electronics payment only marketplace (specifically, limiting payment processing to PayPal, ProPay and sellers' own credit-card merchant accounts), what effect would it have on your profitability, 4.5% said it would increase their profitability; 33.1% said it would have no effect on their profitability, 50.4% said it would decrease their profitability; and 12.1% said they did not know.

Interestingly, 63.3% of survey respondents said they were multi-channel sellers, and 25.5% currently sold on Amazon.com.