eBay Brings PayPal Point-of-Sale to Australia

eBay caused a stir in the U.S. when it announced chains such as The Home Depot were allowing customers to checkout using PayPal at retail store locations, and now PayPal is taking its point-of-sale initiative to Australia.

Four leading retailers will launch in-store payments with PayPal in Australia, the company announced this week: Guzman y Gomez, a Mexican restaurant franchise; Glue, an Australian fashion retailer; Sonoma Bakery, a Sydney based artisan bakery; and Crayons, a specialty education retailer.

Here's how PayPal explained the system: "Using the app, customers will be able to check-in to the store. They can then place an order and pay using their PayPal account. The merchant is able to see the name and photo ID of checked-in customers via their point of sale terminal, which supports customer identification for security purposes."

PayPal is working in collaboration with point of sale technology companies including MICROS, Island Pacific, Kounta and Vend, and in the coming weeks and months, a number of leading hospitality and retail partners will be launching the POS system.

PayPal President David Marcus talked with The Wall Street Journal this week about how the company will try to keep customers using PayPal, "even when they're offline." He also talked about the recent layoffs at PayPal, whether PayPal was profitable and other issues such as NFC.

When the Journal asked, "How big can PayPal get," Marcus said, "We have 117 million active users. We'll go to 200 million." Asked when, he answered, "No comment."

Amsterdam's Mobile Shopping District
PayPal also announced it was participating in an innovative mobile initiative in The Netherlands. Amsterdam's shopping district, De 9 Straatjes (The Nine Streets), has gone mobile and, according to PayPal, "is Europe's first shopping area where you can shop in 30 exclusive boutiques, 24 hours a day from your mobile phone."

As it explained in a recent post on the PayPal blog, all participating shops on De 9 Straatjes have affixed QR codes to their shop window. "With the special 9straatjesonline mobile app you can scan the QR code, which will automatically direct you to a mobile website where you'll see the products displayed in the shopping windows. You can then select the product of your choice, in your desired color or size and buy it with PayPal in just one click. It will be delivered to your home address in a beautiful gift box within two workdays."