PayPal gets competition from Google

June 20, 2005

This is pretty interesting – Just read in the Wall Street Journal that Google is planning on offering an electronic-payment service that is probably fairly similar to eBay's PayPal. I guess the next step would be to offer listing service like eBay or CraigsList and take a serious bite out of eBay's revenues. EBay is a Wall Street darling and all attempts to mimic it have been met with mixed results. Amazon, Yahoo and others have tried to no avail and so it will be interesting to see if Google can beat eBay at its own game. So what's next – Google Bill Pay?

{ 3 comments }

1 n2 June 20, 2005 at 12:55 pm: That's a good thing. PayPal has so many problems. If Google can do it right, they can get a ton of business. The problem with a service like this is all the customer support. PayPal/eBay is terrible on customer support.
2 Mike Shoemaker June 20, 2005 at 1:19 pm: I heard this report on one of the news stations over the weekend. Seems like a weird venture to me. As of now, Google is no where near the ecommerce sector. My guess is that the sure footed google might be up for a blunder when they venture away from information mining. Of course, I'll keep my foot close in the case I need to insert it into my mouth
3 Vinny June 20, 2005 at 3:08 pm: Hi Mike. I agree with you on Google focusing on it's strength but they've proved quite nimble in the past venturing into different territories. Not sure what will happen but it will be nice to have some competition for PayPal.