Yahoo Wallet

Recently I purchased something from Yahoo and received an email from Yahoo saying "a Yahoo Wallet" has been created for me, which will store my billing and shipping information. This is something similar as Google Checkout. Comparing with Google, Yahoo is on a better position because Yahoo has been working with small businesses in Yahoo Store and Yahoo Shopping for a long time, which makes Yahoo Wallet easier than Google Checkout. Since its inception, Google Checkout is having a difficult time to sign up partnership even after offering huge discount for partner stores and shoppers.

Next year, Microsoft Vista e-wallet will come into play. Until then, among Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo, ebay, only Amazon doesn't have its own payment service. But obviously, it is not difficult for them to come up one very quickly and even offer it as a web service. After all, Amazon already sells its virtual online shelf and computing resources.

I am not sure how many percentage of Paypal revenue come from non-ebay users. But if it is a good number, then ebay will have a problem. We already know ebay has been relying on paypal's high margin for the last several years since its auction business grows very slowly. It's certain that ebay users can only use Paypal. But if a significant 3rd party Paypal users start using Google, MS, Yahoo solutions, it's going to be a big issue for ebay.