The new service, called PayPal Here, is part of the company's gradual move into brick-and-mortar stores and will target small businesses that do not currently have comprehensive payment systems in place, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Since PayPal's inception in 1998, the company's online money transfer service has become the de facto payment solution for many websites, but the eBay subsidiary has been gradually expanding into the physical space.
âWhat consumers are looking for is the ability to shop anytime, anywhere,â said eBay CEO John Donahoe. He added that with PayPal Here, a merchant needs only a smartphone to accept payments.
The addition of the new triangular credit card reader extends the service and works exactly like Square's offering, which plugs directly into a smartphone's headphone jack. Unlike Square, however, PayPal's reader currently only supports the iPhone, though an iPad-native app as well as Android versions will be available soon.
Along with the card reader, merchants can manually enter a customer's credit card information, scan cards with the iPhone's camera or email a customer an invoice for later payment. In addition, U.S. users will be able to take pictures of personal checks to receive payment.
The service will take a 2.7 percent commission for each credit card swipe or PayPal transaction, while check payments will be free. Interestingly, merchants who scan or manually input credit card information will have to take a 3.5 percent hit plus a 15 cent fee per transaction.
PayPal Here has already rolled out to select merchants in the U.S., Canada, Hong Kong and Australia and should be available to the public within the next few weeks.
17 Comments
The service will take a 2.7 percent commission for each credit card swipe or PayPal transaction, while check payments will be free. Interestingly, merchants who scan or manually input credit card information will have to take a 3.5 percent hit plus a 15 cent fee per transaction.
That is pretty typical since charges without the card in hand run a higher risk of fraud.
PayPal freaking sucks. I don't have to tell any stories you all know it.
It making me I'll just thinking about them.
More than ever do I want Apple to release NFC in the next iPhone that is tied to their iTS for making transactions.
Interesting design... looks broken, literally.
I use Square and really like the aesthetic. Also, they will transfer your funds into your linked bank account the next day now. PayPal takes two to three days. But Square is charging .05% more. I may add this to my bag, but only if it's a big job and I want to save some money on the transaction.