AliExpress customers will not be able to enjoy payments through PayPal after August 3rd, said a communicate published on the official PayPal blog.
While the reasons behind still remain obscure, Reuters points that “PayPal was unhappy with AliExpress’s rising consumer business on the platform, which is meant for business transactions, and wanted to raise transaction fees for certain accounts”.
Other reasons could be cannibalization by Alipay, Alibaba’s own payment gateway, high volume of transactions involving intellectual property crimes (i.e.: counterfeits) or a strategic change in the direction that eBay wants to take in China.
All in all, these are bad news for the wholesaleDoc community and for those who regularly purchase from China. Although AliExpress will continue to offer a wide array of payment options through AliPay, it’s still far from the levels of popularity that PayPal enjoy outside China. Also, having a neutral third party to handle payments will certainly provide more assurance and peace of mind to many customers.
How many sales will AliExpress lose because of not having PayPal? Will AliPay become a key player in international online payments? What do you think?
