eBay Adds Venmo as Payment Option after Banning AmEx

eBay announced today that US buyers can pay on eBay with Venmo at checkout as it rolls out in the coming week. eBay said it aligned with the “evolving preferences of today’s digital natives.”

Venmo is owned by PayPal and eBay said 28% of Venmo users are Gen Zers and Millennials within the 18 to 29 age bracket. It also noted that over 60% of eBay volume (it didn’t say if that was dollar or unit volume) comes from mobile devices, making Venmo’s mobile platform “ideal for digitally savvy shoppers looking for a simple and fast checkout process.”

PayPal’s help page about Venmo explains, “Venmo is a social payment service to make and share payments with friends, family, and businesses in the United States. It’s like PayPal, but is unique in that, on Venmo, you can share and like payments through a social feed.”

As of August 17, buyers will no longer have the option to pay with American Express, eBay announced earlier this month, citing “unacceptably high fees American Express charges for processing credit card transactions.”

eBay announced the news about Venmo today on its corporate website.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She’s a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of “Turn eBay Data Into Dollars” (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, “Blogging Heroes” (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 – present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 – present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to [email protected]. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.