PayPal Makes Bold Strides Into Offline Payments

PayPal made news on several counts last week, taking several strides forward in establishing its presence in the physical retail world. They announced 15 new national retailers that will incorporate PayPal's offline payments in their stores. These retailers include:

• Abercrombie & Fitch

• Advance Auto Parts

• Aéropostale

• American Eagle Outfitters

• Barnes & Noble

• Foot Locker

• Guitar Center

• Jamba Juice

• JC Penney

• Jos. A. Bank Clothiers

• Nine West

• Office Depot

• Rooms To Go

• Tiger Direct

• Toys “R” Us

The first national retailer to implement PayPal for in-store payments was The Home Depot. The venture proved quite successful, going from a five store pilot test to a complete roll-out in two months.

PayPal's other announcement marking significant progress in offline payments is that the world's top three POS terminal makers are now committed to integrating PayPal into their POS devices. Having already had an existing deal with Ingenico, PayPal sealed the deal with VeriFone and Equinox just last week. Also, to address the mid-market business segment (representing about 1/3 of the US economy), PayPal has announced relationships with Leapset, ShopKeep, Vend and Erply, all mid-market point of sale software providers that will incorporate PayPal into their in-store payment solutions. The total impact of these POS industry ties equals access to about 40 million payment terminals around the world.

David Marcus, president of PayPal, describes in the official blog post, that the company hopes to change the game in offline payments just as it did first with online payments and then with mobile payments. He writes, “While 2012 is a 'test and learn' year for us with regards to the offline retail market, we have no doubt that with newest retailers we are off to a great start.”

You can read more on the official PayPal blog.