PayPal President Scott Thompson has been hired to lead Yahoo Inc. as its chief executive. As of Jan. 9, Thompson will take over a lead role that has been occupied by Yahoo! chief financial officer Tim Morse.
While many analysts have hailed this as great, I must scream out at what a terrible idea this is!!
Both Yahoo and PayPal are once great companies that have taken paths to lower either their financial standing or in the case of PayPal their moral standing (& likely as many merchants bail on PayPal their financial standing as well).
Here is a Yahoo, a company that still maintains a strong base with just email users alone that has allowed their email to go stagnant and constantly crash (which for business can be catastrophic).
Yahoo has not added features such as analytics, canned responses, easy to categorize labels and many of the other features that have made GMail the place to go for serious mail users (business in particular). BTW, I should note that I am no fan of Google, but when they do something right as they have here it should be acknowledged.
Also Yahoo has “missed the boat” as to social media and even though I am not a fan here either, it is very popular and it has been successful for a few as a business tool (although I and a few other business friends I know have admitted that Facebook has done little for their business when the time factor is considered). While Facebook may be a questionable business tool its popularity among everyday users is unquestioned and Yahoo has totally missed out with their lame attempt here, even Google Plus has stepped up to the plate and done a much better job.
As to PayPal, here is a company with the most easily integrated website payment systems that has developed generally excellent trust among buyers (not always though due to their poor customer service) that has followed a rather similar path to Yahoo.
While PayPal admittedly has remained profitable, I would certainly not consider their policies good for long term success.
PayPal has ignored 100s of requests for better tools (just as Yahoo has), such as blocking of countries, blocking fraudulent buyers, more shipping tiers, and most importantly better fraud protection.
Sadly PayPal has allowed many fraudulent buyers through and then when fraud is committed charges the merchant for any and all looses.
Worse PayPal will be condescending in questions about all of the above and then give advice that even PayPal will not follow, as well PayPal will override written contracts which in a court of law would not be allowed, but who has the time to take PayPal to small claims over $25?
I know personally as a PayPal merchant and while PayPal has so many positives that attracted me, however over recent years under Scott Thompson this company has shown utter contempt for integrity and honesty and simply helping their merchants be more profitable which in turn would help PayPal be more profitable.
Anyone who thinks this hand off of Yahoo to Scott Thompson is a Good idea either must not be forward thinking or believes that morality and lack of support of their merchants (that make PayPal’s business) will not someday affect their business. However I may be wrong as we do live in a world where looking the other way when corruption rears its ugly head is often the norm.
I only wished now that I had a crystal ball, as the cost to unintegrate PayPal from our website would cost in the $1000s, so admittedly while I was initially impressed with PayPal (their integration and as a buyer prior to being a merchant, their ease of use), I wish in never used PayPal in the first place and it is this fact that a “GOOD” CEO could make a difference and TRULY build on PayPal’s captive users such as me.
See also:
PayPal
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