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EBay to Ditch PayPal for Dutch Payment Processor Adyen

360 points| watchdogtimer | 8 years ago |bloomberg.com | reply

191 comments

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[+] analog31|8 years ago|reply
Here's what puzzles me. I have looked into Stripe, and just browsed the Adyen webpage. Both of those services seem to require you to maintain your own "active" server that can run server side code.

PayPal seems to be unique in being able to take payments from a passive web page, because the customer conducts their transaction at PP's website.

This is why I continue to use PP for my tiny little business (without eBay). Even though I consider myself reasonably tech savvy, I don't trust myself to maintain a website that is compatible with everybody's browser, phone, etc., and that guarantees the security of their personal data. Moving to another payment processor requires a quantum leap in technology that I'd rather not keep up with. I'd rather design another gizmo.

From time to time I look around for an alternative to PP, and haven't found one yet. I suspect that many small-time eBay sellers may be in the same boat.

[+] clintonb|8 years ago|reply
The reason for processing on your own server is so you own the entire checkout experience. If you redirect he user to another site for payment, you run the risk of losing track of that user. Also, the third-party’s branding may clash with your own.
[+] slobotron|8 years ago|reply
Best way to integrate with stripe is to use their checkout button to get a token instead of receiving CC info directly.

Iirc, still need to use backend code to do the actual charge, but at least you never see any sensitive info.

[+] dcosson|8 years ago|reply
Not sure I follow - you mentioned not handling browser compatibility which implies you're not directly writing the html/css for the site. If you're using shopify or hosted wordpress or something, I would think most of those providers would handle the Stripe integration for you?

You also mention a passive web page, if you're talking about a static site (as in a jekyll or hugo site hosted on S3), you may be right. I don't fully understand how that might work since if you're accepting payment for a service, presumably you also need to keep state somewhere to track the delivery of that service to users and such. But if you did want to accept Stripe on a static site, I would think you could use Lambda functions in AWS to handle the callbacks without worrying about the maintenance costs and security risks of running your own linux server.

[+] dboreham|8 years ago|reply
Wouldn't small time eBay sellers just use whatever payment processor eBay integrates with? (there's no need for them to host any part of the payment process since the transaction is conducted entirely on eBay). Reasons to not use the default processor would be : transaction cost.
[+] vasusen|8 years ago|reply
You might want to take a look at https://www.everbutton.com/. It basically wraps Stripe’s API so you can drop front end JavaScript without any backend code. Much more customizable than PayPal with all of Stripe’s benefits.
[+] roordan|8 years ago|reply
I think the idea is that eBay doesn't want to have users sign up with Paypal anymore. Instead only ever interact with eBay, with Adyen just being the pipes for eBay.
[+] vectorEQ|8 years ago|reply
i agree it's actually kind of bad that payment providers don't provide this page. todays technology could even render it on the webpage of the customer shop without redirecting fully to another page (scrpt scr=paymentproviderscript.bla? or so?). If people have to maintain and host their own script it makes them horrible prone to attack. In which case i'd rather have a payment provider who needs to secure it than every customer of the payment provider (reduces attack surface). i think paypal does good by providing this passive system and other providers should follow it, and perhaps if it's not to their liking innovate in this line instead of dumping their issues to the customer shop.
[+] kennydude|8 years ago|reply
Most third-party payment gateways I've worked with are like this.

They usually offer some kind of "pay links" or something similar.

[+] hkmurakami|8 years ago|reply
How's visa checkout? War under the impression that it was a direct PayPal competitor.
[+] buildbuildbuild|8 years ago|reply
Potentially a great move for eBay to reign in processing fees and to consolidate the dispute resolution process within their own platform. A large pain point for many eBay users has been Paypal's opaque dispute process. (I admit to bias: I lost ~$5,000 in Paypal balance while in college due to Paypal siding with a dishonest international buyer)

For those of you contemplating Adyen vs. Stripe: Adyen is much more "bare metal." Think more like a modern Authorize.net. Nobody comes close to Stripe's turnkey developer-friendliness.

[+] lachyg|8 years ago|reply
(I work at Stripe.)

Glad to hear on the developer friendliness! If there are ways we can continue to improve on that front, please shoot me a note: [email protected]

I'm curious though what you mean when you say Adyen is much more "bare metal" than Stripe. We don't typically talk too much publicly about our underlying infrastructure (our goal is to abstract away that [hopefully] unnecessary complexity), but we do strive to be as close to the bare metal as possible. (We're directly connected to all of the major card brands, and have "acquiring licenses" in numerous markets.)

[+] Shivetya|8 years ago|reply
as a buyer I never worry about purchases I make on ebay. I use paypal to send the money but other than that paypal is not in the picture. if I have a dispute with a seller ebay refunds me if I prove my case.

I was just recently refunded over five hundred dollars for a purchase made on ebay because the seller never had the item to sell. Now I had to wait until the last day of delivery passed and wait the "resolve with seller first" delay which is only three days I think. In the end ebay refunded me.

This is not to say ebay is perfect, they don't require sellers to provide tracking through ebay and they should. they should require it within three business days or allow a refund. In my case the fraudulent seller never provided tracking information even though I made three requests

[+] justherefortart|8 years ago|reply
PayPal is the whole reason I stopped selling on eBay 15 or so years ago.

I use PayPal as a buyer, I would NEVER use them as a seller.

[+] parito|8 years ago|reply
One of the bigger drawbacks of Adyen vs Stripe, although we wanted to work with them a lot, is, they require a crazy reserve (in the millions) if your model is subscription based. The logic behind it from them is, that they must be able to refund all your customers in case you go bankrupt, and you have subscribers left hanging without full-filled service they paid in advance for.

Although I get the logic behind it, not one other PSP requires such a huge reserve, therefore we decided not to work with them.

Todays payments world is v competitive and players like checkout.com and many others are v aggresive trying to disrupt stripe's dominance in this area

[+] superplussed|8 years ago|reply
Are you saying that to process recurring fees on Stripe (as so many startups do) that you need this reserve?
[+] cyberferret|8 years ago|reply
I've never heard of Adyen here in Australia before this. I assume they are far more Europe/US oriented? I assume they will be rolling out the new integration world wide, so that it will become more ubiquitous? I believe Paypal has a local office in Aus, so I presume Adyen will be setting up local offices in most countries?

(I also noticed on the video that it is pronounced "Adi-an" where I first thought "Ad-yen" which makes them sound more like an ad wholesaler than a payment processor.)

[+] dmix|8 years ago|reply
I doubt Adyen is well known among North Americans either (the first market being rolled out for ebay). Ayden is used by Uber and Netflix and some other big names but that's mostly hidden in the background as they are integrated directly into the platforms. Unlike Paypal which has an obvious branded layer for all transactional layers.

I'm curious what the integration with Ebay will look like. Will users be redirected to their Ayden accounts ala Paypal or will it be branded via Ebay?

[+] mdnormy|8 years ago|reply
My previous employer in SEAsia is using Adyen, with majority customer in Europe and Aus/NZ. Hundred thousands of customer. I've never heard of Adyen before joining this company, but my experience with them has been positive. Not Stripe good, but at least on par with other modern payment processor.

Major upside for Adyen is they price match(at least for my company, we process USD ~350mil/annum). This may sounds crazy but my company constantly negotiate the pricing with them. Almost on monthly basis.

I knew this because my team have to work with lots of local and China-based payment processor to create PoC. Just so that corporate team can show this to Adyen and renegotiate the fee.

[+] helb|8 years ago|reply
Never heard of Adyen here in Europe either… But from their website it seems they handle payments for some pretty well-known companies: https://www.adyen.com/customers
[+] ascorbic|8 years ago|reply
When I used Braintree a few years ago, before it was acquired by PayPal and before Stripe launched in the UK, Adyen handled Braintree's merchant accounts (in Europe, at least). I'd never heard of them before (or since). I remember the signup/KYC process as being a massive pain, as we needed to do KYC with Adyen as well as Braintree. It took weeks. A few years later when Stripe launched in the UK I was totally blown away by how simple and quick it was to sign up.
[+] whazor|8 years ago|reply
I have heard of it as it's a Dutch company and I am Dutch. They are doing really well in the sense of having many payment methods, as in Europe every country prefers a different method. The CEO has a lot of experience in payment integrations and financial transactions, even before starting Adyen. Furthermore, in the Netherlands they are also rolling out payment machines that are cheap and support many payment options (also think about Apple Pay etc).
[+] rhysw|8 years ago|reply
(I work at Adyen) - Adyen has an office and acquiring license in Australia, offers EFTPOS, and works with Kogan, Showpo, Freelancer.com, and others.
[+] jsmeaton|8 years ago|reply
We use Adyen at Kogan. They definitely have some staff here and some in Singapore I believe.
[+] lfxyz|8 years ago|reply
I hadn't heard of them until I moved to the Netherlands and only became aware of them because buying e.g. cinema tickets flashed up on my phone as a payment to Adyen rather than Pathe.
[+] saurabhtandon|8 years ago|reply
Since Uber and Netflix are using Ayden in the background I am guessing they can handle global payments. Most of us never knew what payment provider did these companies use so far.
[+] rawfan|8 years ago|reply
I only live a couple of km away from Ayden and this is the first time I've heard of this company.
[+] Someone1234|8 years ago|reply
If anyone else, like me, thought eBay owned PayPal:

> On October 3, 2002, PayPal became a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay. On September 30, 2014, eBay Inc. announced the divestiture of PayPal as an independent company, which was completed on July 20, 2015.

[+] tyingq|8 years ago|reply
I'm all for a competitor in this space. PayPal is very cocky and stagnant.
[+] DrScump|8 years ago|reply
(Autoplay video)

I wonder when eBay will change their rules that currently state that you must offer Paypal and cannot mention other payment options (including cash) in a listing.

[+] thebiglebrewski|8 years ago|reply
Does anyone here use Adyen? We use Stripe but are starting to consider options that may increase conversions.
[+] mark-r|8 years ago|reply
When Ebay first started requiring Paypal, it made sense - Paypal was clearly the frontrunner for online payments and Ebay's homegrown effort was a pale comparison. Also Ebay was a real powerhouse that could move the needle with a decision like that.

Today I feel like Paypal has a lot more traction than Ebay, and this is going to be a big flop for them. As a consumer I don't want to sign up for yet another payment service.

[+] remir|8 years ago|reply
Never heard of Adyen, but it's great to see more Euro companies compete against SV.
[+] amix|8 years ago|reply
Wonder why they didn’t go with Stripe, but with an European competitor? This is great for the European tech scene.
[+] jchw|8 years ago|reply
They didn't "ditch" PayPal, at least not according to the e-mail I saw. They merely made it a non-default option. It's not like you can't still use PayPal.
[+] emilfihlman|8 years ago|reply
Nooooo, oh good, PayPal is available till 2023.
[+] Marazan|8 years ago|reply
Absolutely 100% did not see that coming.
[+] xstartup|8 years ago|reply
Stripe/Braintree are a lot better than PayPal. PayPal will never take your processing history into consideration if their algorithms decide that your account is connected to some account with past violations. This happened when my developer used his API keys on our production resulting in our account with 1M+ revenue/2 years (very few chargebacks if any) of operation banned. As a small startup, it was a death sentence for our business, finding another processor at high volume is difficult when you've no history to show!