Paypal's foray into bitcoin

Paypal recently announced that it is working towards enabling some of its major clients to be able to accept bitcoin from customers via Paypal. The benefit goes both ways for merchants and customers: merchants are able to accept an additional form of payment at no incremental work or cost (since the functionality lives on the Paypal platform) and customers can put more value (and faith!) into bitcoin and potentially other cryptocurrencies. While this is another win for bitcoin after a string of exciting announcements in the past year(s) (bitcoin's acceptance on overstock.com and newegg for example), it is still a hard to accept form of digital payment for many. The topic of bitcoins and retailers accepting bitcoins has been buzzworthy and in my opinion, a marketing ploy to get innovators and early adopters to try the currency out with credible players. However, it has not caught on as expected, likely due to the many security issues bitcoin exchanges have experienced in the past, with about 1 in 10 bitcoins having been lost. Despite all this, everything is moving to be mobile-driven, including payments. And with that shift means more consumers opening up to the idea of an everyday behavior of digitally-transferring money. Bitcoin can offer lower transactions costs and more flexibility, so its time to shine may come in the not-so-far-distant future. Just not today.


Source: Techcrunch

eBay: PayPal Mobile Payment Volume Up Over 500 Percent On Thanksgiving Day And Black Friday

We talked about cyber monday in class, but this was the first year I think cyber weekend occured, where people were just buying online all weekend and avoiding the retail outlets. I think paypal also is an indicator of cost conscious consumers, and this increase in volumes show that americans are being more consious of their retail habits. Paypal is the ultimate in the intermediary and has built a brand across internet security.





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As we heard earlier today, Thanksgiving proved to be a lucrative day for online retailers. IBM reported online Thanksgiving 2011 sales were up 39 percent over Thanksgiving 2010, with mobile shopping on the rise. eBay and PayPal are seeing similar trends. PayPal Mobile just announced a 511 percent increase in global mobile payment volume when compared to Thanksgiving 2010.
On Thanksgiving in the U.S., consumers shopped on mobile via PayPal most frequently between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. PST. Around the world, consumers shopped on mobile most frequently between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. PST.
There was a more than three-fold (350 percent) increase in the number of global customers shopping through PayPal mobile on Thanksgiving 2011 compared to last year. These shoppers were mainly located in New York, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago.
eBay says that the amount shoppers in the U.S. that bought and spent via eBay Mobile more than doubled this Thanksgiving over last year. GSI Commerce saw a more than three-fold (345 percent) increase in U.S. mobile sales this Thanksgiving compared to 2010. And Searches through the local product listings platform Milo increased 557 percent percent over Thanksgiving Day 2010.
For eBay, the busiest eBay Mobile shopping hour on Thanksgiving was between 6 and 7 p.m. PST. The five most popular categories shopped via eBay Mobile, excluding vehicles (by number of sold items) were Clothing, Shoes & Accessories; Cell Phones & PDAs; Jewelry & Watches; Collectibles and Toys & Hobbies.
In electronics, the top purchases items yesterday were iPhone Accessories, the black Apple iPhone 4 (16GB), and the Apple iPod Touch 4th Generation (8GB).
The dramatic rise in payment volume via mobile phones isn’t particularly surprising considering all the hype around mobile shopping this holiday season. But a 500 percent increase in payment volume for PayPal is still impressive for mobile shopping and we haven’t even seen the full numbers for Black Friday or Cyber Monday yet.
So far, things look positive for Black Friday, eBay says that as of 11 a.m. PST, PayPal is already seeing a more than six-fold increase (538 percent) in global mobile payment volume on Black Friday 2011 compared to the same time period on Black Friday 2010.
According to IBM, the number of consumers using a mobile device on Black Friday to visit a retailer’s site is holding firm at 17.37 percent and the number of consumers using their mobile device to make a purchase remains is at 9.73 percent. The iPhone currently leads all mobile device traffic at 6.77 percent, followed by Android at 5.37 percent and iPad at 4.6 percent.
Already IBM says that afternoon results show that Black Friday 2011 online sales are 20 percent higher for the same time period over Black Friday 2010. Black Friday 2011 online sales eclipsed Thanksgiving sales at 2:20pm PST this afternoon, says IBM.
Amanda Pires of PayPal tell us that the holiday is proving to be the largest mobile holiday shopping season PayPal and eBay has ever seen. “The retailers that are taking advantage of mobile shopping are going to win. We expect mobile shopping to continue to be strong throughout the holiday season.”
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/25/ebay-paypal-mobile-payment-volume-up-over-500-percent-on-thanksgiving-day/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Shopping Just Got Speedier

Square, a virtual wallet app that allows customers to make purchases at certain merchants using only their name, went through a bit of an upgrade this week. The app has launched a new geotracking fipunctionality that allows customers to opt in for certain establishments so every time they are within a certain radius of that business they are on a sort of pre-qualified shopper list. So, there's no need to activate the app at point of sale to make a transaction. Customer profiles, which contain a photo for security purposes, will automatically populate on the merchant's app and the shopper can just give his/her name to make a purchase.

Despite some security concerns around fraud, this is further transforming the payments industry and could push payment providers (including my current employer!) into a serious share loss situation. Square, as well as a number of similar European players, are the ones to watch as we are further enveloped into a digital society.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/02/squares-card-case-ios-app-adds-support-for-geofencing-twitter-integration-for-merchants-and-more/