Revolutionizing Commerce: Paypal Unveiled 6 New Features In January 2024
PayPal is the world’s largest online payment processor with 35 million merchant accounts and almost 400 million consumer accounts. On January 25th, PayPal unveiled 6 new features at a well-publicized “PayPal First Look” video event with a vision to revolutionize commerce.
Artificial intelligence is the main component of these new features to highlight better customer experiences (quicker and simpler checkout processes) and opportunities for small companies through new advertising choices. In addition to this, PayPal will continue releasing new features and upgrades throughout 2024.
In this blog, we are going to discuss the 6 new features and their effects on small companies:
1. New and Improved PayPal Checkout
New-PayPal-Checkout
Source – Paypal
Checkout is the final interaction that a customer has with a retailer. Although this process appears simple, any hiccup can ruin the complete purchasing experience. While customers want to get rid of any inconvenient distractions like password prompts and slow response times, on the other hand, business owners want to concentrate on their next sale. To solve this issue, PayPal has:
- Significantly boosted the checkout process tempting users to choose it
- Integrated passkeys so users can log in with only a touch using their fingerprint or face
- Reduced latency
2. Fastlane by PayPal
Source – Paypal
Due to the lengthy and slow guest checkout process, merchants are missing out on deals. Furthermore, customers rarely register or sign in while browsing. However, when it comes time to check out, they have to locate their password, update their credit card details, and change their delivery address. To overcome this, PayPal is launching “Fastlane by PayPal”, a brand-new one-click guest checkout feature. Businesses using PayPal’s platform can offer this feature to their customers allowing them to complete a quick and easy transaction. With Fastlane, customers can check out with only one swipe by saving their information. The “Fastlane by PayPal” feature eliminates the need to:
- Share your credit card with businesses across the internet
- Remember usernames or passwords
- Update any personal information
PayPal has been testing “Fastlane by PayPal” with some businesses and the early results are impressive. Some sellers on BigCommerce, a well-known open software-as-a-service (SaaS) e-commerce platform and a longstanding partner of PayPal, have seen initial results. These results have shown that Fastlane can identify 70% of guests and achieves approximately 40% faster checkout times as compared to a standard guest checkout process.
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3. AI-Powered Smart Receipts
Source – Paypal
With the launch of AI-powered smart receipts, PayPal is eliminating the guesswork of both finding the best offers for customers and encouraging merchants to attract customers again. When customers shop using PayPal, they will receive a receipt that allows them to trace their purchases and use artificial intelligence (AI) to suggest possible future purchases from that merchant. Therefore, merchants can now add a cashback incentive offer and a customized recommendation to the receipt.
Today, about 45% (an incredible open rate) of PayPal users worldwide open email receipts daily. That means tens of millions of merchants and hundreds of millions of customers are seeing timely, highly relevant rewards and suggestions in their email receipts. This makes it easier for merchants to contact their customers again, increasing the possibility of repeated purchases and business growth.
In addition, PayPal is making use of AI-powered recommendations derived from customer behaviour data and the breadth of what it can see online. PayPal is making it possible for every small store to have the same purchasing power as the biggest brands in the world by using customized AI.
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4. Advanced Offer Ads
Today, after an online purchase customers only see advertisements based on their browsing behaviors. This can be annoying and useless. In response, PayPal will leverage specific customer data to create an innovative, highly customized advanced offers platform. This allows merchants to connect with customers based on the specific products and stock-keeping units (SKUs) they have purchased online.
This new performance-based offers platform introduces the possibility of using AI to organize and analyze data from about half a trillion dollars’ worth of merchant transactions globally. In addition to this, merchants can customize offers for customers through the platform. They will only be charged for actual performance and not for impressions or clicks. Customers of PayPal will also benefit from more relevant offers and possibilities to earn rewards.
PayPal is developing clear and simple privacy settings that allow users to choose whether or not to share their data with merchants to customize their shopping experience.
5. Reinventing The PayPal App & CashPass
Source – Paypal
PayPal is also redesigning the app to provide loyal customers with even more incentives to use PayPal for daily purchases and payments. All too frequently, the largest merchants that can afford to purchase the greatest search phrases are the ones who provide the top products to customers. Customers are also still feeling the effects of inflation and are searching for methods to save money and get the best offers. For this reason, PayPal is launching CashPass. It will allow users to access hundreds of amazing, customized cash-back deals from leading U.S. businesses.
To use this deal, a user only needs to tap it, make a purchase from that business, and pay with PayPal. Customers will often see new offers providing them additional incentives to use the app. CashPass uses AI to organize customized deals for clients based on purchase patterns.
With an amazing group of launch partners, PayPal is planning to introduce CashPass in March. This will allow customers to access deals from merchants like Best Buy, eBay, McDonald’s, Priceline, Ticketmaster, Uber, and Walmart.
PayPal CashPass users will also have the option to add other PayPal benefits like cashback from the PayPal Cashback Mastercard. After that, they can add money to their PayPal Savings account and continue to earn more.
6. Enhanced Venmo Business Profiles
Source – Paypal
Social media, word-of-mouth, and online reviews are the main sources of recommendations for small businesses. However, on social media, it can be challenging to stand out, and one negative review may adversely impact a company’s reputation. In 2021, Venmo (owned by PayPal) launched business profiles as a quick and affordable method for businesses to take payments and grow. Since then, the platform has grown to have over 90 million active users. Venmo is now launching improved Venmo business profiles, which will make it easier than ever for small businesses to be found.
In the enhanced version of Venmo business profiles, businesses will have significant new options to drive traffic, make purchases, and develop their business more effectively in addition to subscribe buttons, profile rankings, and the opportunity to give incentives to customers.
Customers can find reputable businesses recommended by their network and take benefit of cashback offers when they visit nearby businesses. The social feed of Venmo is the most dynamic, practical, and personal of any mobile payment service. It is transforming the way small businesses can get real-time, hyper-local discounts and promotions. Venmo will offer similar privacy limitations that are accessible on PayPal.
Why These New PayPal Features Are Important For Small Businesses?
As biometric payments are popular among shoppers and more and more customers choose convenience throughout their shopping experiences, merchants who accept PayPal payments can see an increase in income from these customer-facing improvements.
Fewer Abandoned Carts
The checkout process is quicker and more efficient when there are fewer details for customers to fill out, and hence there are fewer chances for customers to stop and quit the purchase. A whopping 97% of customers have given up on an online purchase because it was difficult or time-consuming to complete.
Higher Sales, Better Conversion Rates
More sales result from fewer abandoned carts. PayPal claims that checkout times can be sped up by 40% with Fastlane. BigCommerce tested the new checkout of PayPal where merchants experienced up to 70% conversion rates.
Additional Consumer Touchpoints
Additional customer touchpoints for small businesses include shoppable cashback incentives, smart receipts, and product recommendations. PayPal makes an affordable option for small businesses that want to improve retention and revenues per customer by claiming that these touchpoints would be AI-driven based on customer data and paid on a performance basis.
Final thoughts
The technological changes that PayPal has revealed are not new. Competitors like Shopify have previously implemented similar app updates and checkout upgrades. However, PayPal has a major share of the market as 78% of shops either now accept PayPal or plan to do so. Due to its market domination, PayPal will make improvements this year to benefit small businesses and customers and will have a greater effect on the industry.
