October 13, 2011
PayPal to Announce New Shopping Service
Kilian Melloy READ TIME: 2 MIN.
PayPal, eBay's online payment service, plans to announce a new service Wednesday that aims to make it easier to shop online by cutting down on the number of accounts consumers have to create with various Web retailers.
Called PayPal Access, the service will be unveiled at eBay's X.commerce developer conference in San Francisco. It will be launched with X.commerce, a new eBay Inc. business launching Wednesday geared toward developers and merchants that encourages developers to integrate eBay's technology into mobile commerce apps. X.commerce merges the software developer communities for eBay.com, PayPal and eBay-owned e-commerce software company Magento, which together include 850,000 developers.
EBay spokesman Anuj Nayar said PayPal Access will let users log on to participating retailers' sites and pay with their PayPal username and password, rather than creating a separate account as many online retailers currently require. As it stands now, shoppers on some sites have to set up an account even if they're paying with PayPal, the details for which they don't enter until near the end of the transaction. The service would keep a user's personal details within PayPal, Nayar said.
Also Wednesday, X.commerce plans to roll out a set of developer tools called X.commerce Fabric, which is intended to simplify the process for adding eBay-owned technology - such as that behind Milo, a local shopping engine eBay bought in 2010 - to apps for smartphones and tablet computers.
And the conference will be used to show off the upcoming version of eBay's smartphone app RedLaser, which currently lets people scan product barcodes and compare prices online and in local stores. RedLaser 3.0, which Nayar said will be out by the end of the year, will add PayPal for purchasing items directly from the app.
It's likely that X.commerce will announce some sort of partnership with Facebook on Wednesday, too. Though eBay wouldn't divulge any details, Facebook's platform and mobile marketing director, Katie Mitic, will be a keynote speaker at the conference.
Kilian Melloy serves as EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor. His professional memberships include the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, and the Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee.
