Alipay charges external merchants from next month

Taobao officially announced yesterday that it will charge the system in real time based on different rate standards for Alipay contracted merchants and non-contracted merchants (except for transactions on Taobao and Alibaba websites) starting from April 2. Gong Meng, Alipay's PR manager, said that this charging measure is mainly for external merchants on Taobao and Alibaba websites. Currently, Taobao users are not involved.
Alipay officially announces billing rules
According to the billing rules published by Taobao, no more than 1.5% of the rate will be charged for the Alipay contracted merchants, and the system will automatically deduct the fee based on the rate of 3% in the case of transactions by non-contracted merchants, if you want to upgrade to a contracted merchant, you can enjoy a lower rate (up to 1.5% ). According to Alipay statistics, as of the end of 2006, non-Taobao merchants who used Alipay as payment tools, such as digital communication and game card games, had more than 0.3 million companies, many famous enterprises, such as Lenovo Mall, Patriot Mall, Shanghai pharmacy chain, and DAVANI jewelry net, are signing merchants of Alipay. This charge covers a wide range of areas.
Gong Meng, Alipay's PR manager, explained that charges for online payment tools have become a common trend in the industry, such as online payment tools such as Huanxun and quickmoney, currently, the billing conditions for external merchants are mature. Gong Meng said that the current transactions on Taobao and Alibaba are still free of charge, and there is no plan to charge such users.
Different responses from sellers and users to charges
I noted in my interview that sellers have different opinions on Alipay charges. A famous company said that Alipay had been charged for it since February this year, and said that it had been prepared for Alipay's charging actions. The owner of DAVANI jewelry Network said, it is still unclear about the specific billing rules. Once a notification is sent from Alipay, the company will calculate the cost and further negotiate with Alipay for cooperation.
However, this billing rule has still aroused heated discussion among many Taobao users in online forums. Some netizens expressed support and others expressed their intention to use other payment tools.
I noticed that my competitors did not immediately follow up on Alipay's charging actions, but they are still watching. According to eBay, the payment tool of eBay is free for users. Different from Alipay, its permission to use is based on online shopping. That is, if a merchant wants to use Alibaba Cloud for other transactions, it cannot be technically implemented, therefore, there is no charge for external merchants.
Billing of payment tools is an inevitable trend
Gao Fuping, dean of the School of Intellectual Property, East China University of Political Science and Law, believes that in the early stages of online payment platforms, most of the payment tools are provided to users for free to attract users and gain competitive advantages. However, after all, all payment tools have operation costs and cannot be free for a long time. Charging is an inevitable trend. The ultimate goal of enterprises is to make profits.
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Over 100 online payment tools
Online payment tools were born on the Internet in China in 1999 and have entered a period of rapid development since 2004. At present, there are more than 100 online payment tools in China, this phenomenon has attracted the attention of relevant management departments. It is reported that the "payment and liquidation organization management measures" formulated by the People's Bank of China has been modified and will be introduced soon. The measures will clarify which enterprises are qualified for online payment and how to charge service fees. A certain number of licenses will be issued at that time, include qualified payment enterprises in the supervision of financial institutions.