Now that OpenBazaar has launched, anyone in the world is capable of selling their item online in exchange for a Bitcoin payment. But for those looking to link an eBay and OpenBazaar store together, it will likely result in account termination on the auction site.
eBay and OpenBazaar Do Not Play Well Together
On paper, there is absolutely nothing wrong with selling an item on OpenBazaar and eBay at the same time. After all, the seller can update the quantity of available items on both platforms with regular ease, so there will be no disappointed customers. But the reality is far different, unfortunately.
According to the eBay Terms of Service, the company holds the right to cancel any auctions and terminate the account if they find out the information is linked to OpenBazaar somehow. The eBay TOS clearly state “including contact details or an offer to buy or sell an item outside of eBay” is not allowed, and a violation of their policy.
Then again, there are a lot of sellers who list the same goods or products on various platforms around the world, without having their account terminated as a result. It all comes down to whether or not they include the information regarding the same auction on eBay as well or not, which means OpenBazaar sellers could not link to their eBay store [in theory at least].
This is where the eBay ToS gets rather vague, unfortunately, as it is unclear as to what type information users can mention. The term “contact information” is quite broad and open to interpretation, but it seems best to avoid the eBay and OpenBazaar worlds to mingle for the time being.
Some Reddit users are pondering over this problem as well, and there is a chance it is possible to link from OpenBazaar to eBay without too much hassle. However, mentioning OpenBazaar on the eBay platform might result in violation. A clarification of their TOS would be a good thing, but companies usually keep them vague and open for interpretation to justify any drastic course of action taken by them.
This is one of the reasons why OpenBazaar is a better solution than eBay, for most sellers. Granted, there is no usage of PayPal as a payment method, which removes a lot of potential customers from the equation. But Bitcoin is a global peer-to-peer payment method anyone in the world can use at low fees and without worrying about chargebacks.
Unfortunately, issues like these will only become apparent once eBay decided to take a course of action against OpenBazaar users. Consumers and businesses should be free to sell their wares and services to anyone in the world, regardless of platform or cross-over posting. For now, that is not yet the case.
Source: Reddit
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