Do you take Razr?
Pay bills by text message? PayPal going mobile
Ok, I read the title of this article and immediately became interested. The article talks about the company which a lot of you I’m sure are familiar with – PayPal. PayPal got its start by settling auction sales through eBAY. PayPal grew fast with the success of eBAY and eventually eBAY bought the company. Now, PayPal still is primarily used on eBAY but also offers users payment options through email.
The next step is taking this payment plan to the wireless phone community. To really appreciate what this could mean to society you have to look at an example of when this would be beneficial.
I’ll speak from experience… How many times have you been to a restaurant with friends, got the check, and had to split it five ways on five different credit cards? Not only is this a pain for the server, but it’s very time consuming for you and your friends…”Ok, we had 4 pitchers at $5 each and you had the burger. I had the wrap, so that leaves the pizza for Chucky Cheese over there.” - Very annoying. PayPal’s new system will allow you to reconcile your bill on the spot, at the table, so one person can just cover the whole tab. The transaction will be taken care of before you leave the table so you don’t have to worry about your friend’s I.O.U. – they’re just as good as money, right. PayPal also talks about using their technology at supermarkets, yard sales, and anywhere else consumer transactions take place.
One huge benefit of this service will be seen by small businesses that can’t afford to pay credit merchants. Typically, when you use your VISA to buy something at a store, 9% of the transaction goes directly to VISA. This is expensive for a company just trying to get its feet off the ground. PayPal’s take of each transaction tops out right around 2.9% which is much more reasonable. Initially, the service will be free for all consumers – sweetlife.
PayPal expects the service to be available as soon as June. They need to get moving on the project and they’re currently hiring new employees like crazy to do just that. They face competition from other companies already; however, they have high street credibility with all those people that use their current service on eBAY. I think they’ll do fine in terms of competition, and I look forward to trying out their service.
posted by Jeff at 2:45 PM
4 Comments:
When I read this article, I said to myself…”wow”! This is an awesome idea which would help me in my everyday life. Take yesterday for example. We went to Kates for lunch to take advantage of their half price nachos deal (which is the best bargain in the whole entire world). We got two plates of nachos, a couple of pitchers of beer, and some other stuff that we probably shouldn’t have gotten. When the bill got there, people were like, “well I only have a 20 spot on me, so that means that I will get you the money later when I can break it”. And I’ll be damned if I have to pay the entire bill and then go begging for the money from friends like I was a collection agency. So then we needed to get the hot hostess to get change for all of us who only carry big bills on us (you know how we do) and it was a mess. Although I love to ask beautiful women for favors just so I can talk to them, it was an inconvenience for all of us. This new idea from paypal will take the stress out of eating. This is also going to stick it to the credit card companies and make them lower their rates for these businesses. Well done paypal. I’m going to pay with my razr from now on. (no, I don’t have a razr, because I would never in my life pay $350 dollars to talk on a telephone).
March 08, 2006
Paypal going mobile sounds like a great idea. Since it’s trusted by nearly everyone, it definitely will not have a problem breaking into the industry. The scenario that you used as an example is a situation that happens to everyone, and using Paypal on your cell phone would eliminate that annoying problem. It’s such a pain to figure out who owes what and who has to pay people back. Moreover, 2.9 % vs. 9% is a huge difference when it comes to businesses giving a percentage to credit merchants. I’m sure many of them will accept Paypal. Sweetlife for sure.
March 08, 2006
I think that PayPal is a great Idea also. It allows people to pay on the spot through their phones. There are downsides to this though, I know personally sending my personal information over the web or via text messaging is very risky and that information does have a chance of being intercepted by the wrong people. PayPal must ensure people one-hundred percent safety to be a prosperous and profitable organization. I think it will be a hit for young people. Our parents will be a hard market to convert to this payment plan due to the fact that they take longer to adapt to new technology. Overall, it is a good idea and I will be interested to see how popular it becomes in the future.
March 12, 2006
I think that Paypal is a really great idea. The idea of letting people pay for purchases on their phone is g enius. Although there are security issues, I think that it would be very convienient and especially appealing to people who are on the go. It is important that the system be flawless, but isn’t that impossible? However, if consumers run the risk of having their personal information out in the public if the system is hacked into, they will not want to use the system. I think it will be interesting to see if this really does happen. I think it will definetly be a huge hit in the next 2-3 years.
April 30, 2006
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