As the ACCC readies to decide whether eBay's PayPal push is legal, the auction giant is resorting to a fairly obvious tactic to try to distract customers: discounted listing fees.
The clock is ticking for eBay. The three weeks it has to prepare a response to the 500-odd people who have formally complained about its plans to ditch all payment methods other than PayPal finish on Friday May 23.
The ACCC has said that it expects to make a final decision on whether to approve eBay's request by the middle of June, just in time for the company's proposed June 17 implementation of the "use PayPal or bugger off" approach to go ahead if it does get the green light.
In the meantime, eBay is having to butter up its existing user base, hoping to stem losses from sellers who have said they plan to ditch the site like an overpriced hot potato. eBay management has already admitted that there's probably going to be an initial drop in activity once the rule kicks in.
In what appears to be a blatant attempt to minimise that impact, an email sent to eBay users today promises half-price listing fees for ten days. "The bargain hunting season has just opened on eBay," the site promises. The promotion runs from May 25 to June 3, neatly covering the period when eBay is likely to be getting a kicking in the press over the contents of its ACCC response.
It's worth remembering, though, that eBay has already made it compulsory to include PayPal as one of the payment options on listings, and that the discount doesn't affect the final value fees charged on successful auctions. The page promoting the promotion actually makes the slightly inflammatory claim that "PayPal is now mandatory", but as eBay's recent conduct has repeatedly shown, angering its seller base isn't considered a major business issue.