Chief Executive of EBay John Donahoe and Chief Financial Officer Bob Swan promised, earlier this year, to strike deals with twenty brick and mortar merchants allowing customers to pay via PayPal using their cellphones. Today, the two men completed their first round of fifteen such agreements, including Advance Auto Parts, American Eagle Outfitters, Jamba Juice, Guitar Center, TigerDirect, Foot Locker, Office Depot, Toys R Us, and about 2,000 Home Depot stores.
Google offers a competing service, Google Wallet, notably also accepted by three of the retailers PayPal signed on with: Jamba Juice, American Eagle, and Toys R Us.
While agreements struck on Thursday with payment processors VeriFone and Equinox makes it easy and inexpensive for retail stores to add PayPal support, I’m not sure how much value this really adds for the typical shopper? PayPal’s Don Kingsborough, the executive overseeing the initiative, said “An important part of our future is to get to ubiquity.” That’s great for eBay and PayPal, but I’m not sure most of us wanted to sign into our smartphones to check out at the store in the first place.
Just a week or two ago, I made a trip to the local Home Depot to buy a tool and a new drill bit when I saw signs and banners announcing the store now accepts PayPal. After a few initial seconds of excitement (or was that techcitement?) about a new payment option, I realized it wasn’t doing me any good. I’ve carried around a PayPal debit card ever since I first signed up for their service, many years ago. When I make a payment with it, I earn a percentage credited back to my PayPal account. I don’t think they’re offering the same for a cellphone initiated payment. PayPal’s implementation doesn’t even appear to save shoppers any time, since they’re still required to check out at a register. (At least the EasyPay system Apple retail stores began using allows customers to pay for an item with their iOS device and walk right out.)
I suspect this initiative will help PayPal keep their name in front of people, but wind up more of a marketing win for them than a win for consumers.
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