eBay gets charitable with payment update

E-commerce platform eBay has launched a new payments feature for Android and iOS users in the UK and the United States, allowing merchants and customers to donate to charity via their smartphones.

The update was released this week and features a ‘‘Sell for Charity’’ option. Users of the app can donate between 10 and 100 percent of each sale they make.

In the UK, donating to charity through eBay is already very popular. Two million people currently give to UK charities when they buy and sell through the platform. Cancer charity CLIC Sargent has raised over £1m on eBay this year.

‘‘If you donate 50 percent of your item’s sale price to charity, we’ll give you a 50 percent credit on your basic selling fees. The fee credit will appear automatically on your first eBay invoice after the item sells,’’ explained an eBay spokesperson.

The California-based company also turned its attention to the Apple Watch this week, as they unveiled a new app designed specifically for the smartwatch on Tuesday. An eBay app is already available on Pebble smartwatches as well as Samsung Gear, but eBay has put its faith in the Apple Watch.

‘‘Our goal is to make it relevant to users and not obnoxious,’’ commented John Tapley, eBay’s senior product manager for mobile and wearables. ‘‘We’re just at the start of it, so we’ll continue to evolve the feature set over time.’’

 

 

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