eBay moved to an electronic-payments-only site last fall, banning checks and money orders. In addition to allowing merchant credit card accounts and its own PayPal payment service, eBay added a few other options this year, including ProPay, Paymate and Moneybookers. We checked in with Markus Kroeger, Managing Director at Moneybookers USA Inc., 5 months after the service integrated on eBay.com.
Mr. Kroeger said adoption of the service on eBay has been going really well, despite the fact that it is not easy to break into the home turf of PayPal. He said Moneybookers is adding about 3,000 new eBay.com sellers a month. "To put this in perspective, Moneybookers as a group is adding about 12,000 end customers a day," he said, referring to its international and off-eBay accounts.
The Moneybookers service is also integrated with shopping-cart systems, and merchants can use the payment service on their own web stores as well.
Moneybookers is an established brand in Europe, where it is based, but Kroeger said U.S.-based sellers are signing up for the service on eBay.com. "Particularly on the U.S. site, there seems to be a need for an alternative to PayPal, and this is how we would like to see ourselves, and position ourselves. Apparently there is a need to give the customers a wider choice, and also lots of sellers who like choice and like some alternatives to PayPal."
Kroeger explained that Moneybookers is used for international eBay trade, but not exclusively. "We see a large percentage of our trades being completely domestic because buyers can pay right away. There's no sign-up required with a wallet, like in the case of PayPal, and so, the payment flow is basically uninterrupted. The funds are settled directly into the eBay seller's account instead of going through a merchant account first." He said Moneybookers is also slightly cheaper than PayPal.
And for U.S. merchants who wish to reach buyers from Europe or other parts of the world, "the Moneybookers brand is well recognized among buyers, so there's a certain trust factor that comes into play," and he said the company has 8 years of experience in risk- and fraud-management with international consumers.
Moneybookers recently added over 60 new funding options for international buyers in addition to major credit cards to increase payment conversion. In Germany, for example, only 30 percent of consumers have credit cards. As international buyers increasingly look to shop on eBay.com for a number of reasons, including the weaker dollar, Kroeger said Moneybookers bridges the gap by expanding the reach of U.S. sellers to many more customers.
"We are really trying to become part of the eBay ecosystem."
