New Offerings Demonstrate Potential to Change the Future of Payments

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA) worked with PayPal to support application payments in the Java Store Beta and enhancements to the beta user experience. A consumer-facing storefront enabling the discovery and purchase of Java™ and JavaFX™ applications, the Java Store Beta offers an unequaled distribution mechanism for reaching more than 800 million desktop Java users worldwide and driving potential revenue opportunities through the sale of innovative content.

Carlson Marketing teamed with PayPal to provide another redemption option for participants in client loyalty and engagement programs. Participants now can redeem their program points for specific PayPal dollar amounts. The money can be deposited into their own PayPal accounts or can be given as a gift. Participants simply select the PayPal reward from an online catalog, and within minutes they will receive an e-mail confirming the transaction.

ShopSavvy, the comparison shopping application with more than 3 million users worldwide, now offers mobile payments utilizing PayPal X. PayPal’s first suite of application programming interfaces (APIs), Adaptive Payments, makes it possible for ShopSavvy users to immediately purchase items through their PayPal accounts after they scan the product barcode with their mobile phone cameras.

Payvment today introduced an e-commerce application that allows anyone to easily create a retail store on Facebook. By harnessing the power of PayPal X, customers will now be able to shop from multiple vendors in a single shopping cart, turning Facebook into an online shopping mall.

MedPayOnline uses PayPal X to power its patient payment system, which addresses the payments needs of the $2.3 trillion healthcare market for patient payments. Using Adaptive Payments, the new application allows anyone to easily pay their medical providers online.

Storenvy today launched as an online store system and social shopping community, connecting independent merchants with shoppers in a social setting. Storenvy’s social shopping features allow consumers to interact and see each others’ tastes and comments on products across all stores, creating a crowd-curated selection of “Most Popular” items for new users to discover. Adaptive Payments allows Storenvy shoppers to use one shopping cart and make one payment transaction, even when buying from multiple stores or multiple countries.

Cheers!
RBH

“The addition of these new currencies makes it even easier to use PayPal around the world,” said Scott Thompson, PayPal’s president. “Consumers have more choice in how they pay, merchants can conduct business in more markets around the world, and developers can now create multi-currency applications built on PayPal X.”

Remember, if you want to follow my live-blogging of PayPal X, please check out my Twitter feed @ebayinkblog. I’ll continue to update Ink with news as I receive it.
Cheers!
RBH

New Capabilities for Adaptive Payments
PayPal unveiled new capabilities and enhancements for its Adaptive Payments APIs, expanding payment functionality for multiple recipients and on multiple platforms. New capabilities include:

Currency conversion: Fast, easy global payment apps, automatically converting currencies using current exchange rates.
Pay Anyone: For financial and other institutions to let their customers send money when logged in to their bank accounts. Their customers won’t need a PayPal account to use the service.
Pre-approvals: Enables developers to create reusable payments agreements between buyers and sellers. While payment approval happens online, the actual money movement can occur offline at different intervals, and through multiple devices that are not necessarily Internet-connected at the time.
Send Money: Developers can build person-to-person (P2P) solutions or business-to-business (B2B) payment applications on their platform of choice – whether it’s the mobile phone or a social networking site.
Chained Payments: Developers can take a cut or distribute funds from PayPal payments as they happen.
Parallel payments: Developers can enable buyers to send money to several people in one payment, which is ideal for purchasing multiple items from different sellers, or even for payroll applications.

Introducing Adaptive Accounts
PayPal introduced a beta of its Adaptive Accounts API to provide a streamlined signup experience for people who don’t have PayPal accounts, while maintaining security and privacy of consumer data. With the new API, developers can create PayPal accounts for their customers from within their applications.

New Pricing for Services Payments
Starting in Q2 2010, PayPal will offer pricing for developers building applications in markets that are traditionally served by cash and checks, such as rent, consulting businesses or payroll.

The introductory pricing is:
A flat fee of 50 cents for service transactions funded by a bank account or PayPal account balance, with a three-day settlement period; or a 0.75 percent fee for service transactions funded by a bank account or PayPal account balance, with instant settlement.

Mobile Embedded Payment Toolkit Beta
A key component of PayPal X will be the mobile payment software development kit (SDK), which makes it easier for developers to integrate PayPal into mobile applications to buy physical goods. With just a few lines of code, developers can add a checkout button to accept mobile payments without having to worry about collecting any financial information. The mobile SDK, which will initially support iPhone, will be available in the first half of 2010.

“Mobile transactions have been notoriously tough to monetize,” said Osama Bedier, PayPal’s vice president of platform. “With the new SDK, just tell us how much you want to get paid and what the payment is for, and the funds will be transferred in seconds, not days or weeks.”

X.com Developer Portal
PayPal also unveiled X.com, a new developer portal that contains all the information developers need to create applications built with PayPal X. All general sessions at Innovate 2009 can be viewed live from x.com, and all sessions from the conference will be available for viewing at x.com after the conference.

I’ll keep everyone posted with news from here at PayPal X Innovate 09 as it comes out.

Related Links:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/a-growing-paypal-could-soon-overshadow-parent-ebay/

http://mashable.com/2009/11/04/paypal-id/

http://venturebeat.com/2009/11/04/paypal-woos-developers-with-150k-challenge/

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/paypal-seeks-new-ways-to-use-its-payment-system/

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2009/11/05/paypal-on-track-to-lead-ebay-opens-doors-to-outside-developers/

http://gigaom.com/2009/11/03/paypals-partially-open-platform-to-usher-in-new-payment-models-apps/

http://tamebay.com/2009/11/paypal-x-dev-con-spawns-facebook-shopping-mall.html

http://econsultancy.com/blog/4907-paypal-turns-to-developers-in-its-quest-for-world-domination

Cheers,
RBH

The conference is PayPal’s first dedicated developer conference and will be organized across five tracks to capture the activity around the PayPal platform and how it can help developers monetize their applications.

The five tracks are as follows:

Innovators and Emerging Payments
Looking to go beyond e-commerce and the traditional web? Join us as we explore ideas beyond the conventional online store – areas like social applications, games, RIA’s, even embedded devices. The web is opening up. Let’s explore together and learn how PayPal can power your ideas.

Web Checkout with PayPal
The Web Checkout with PayPal track will address PayPal’s core payment products and technology behind more than 70 million active accounts in 190 markets. Come and learn how you can leverage the popular global payment network for your business.

Financial Innovations
The Financial Innovations track delivers a game changing way in how you bring banking to your customers. Sessions will demonstrate how financial institutions can rapidly and seamlessly bring solutions like P2P, rewards, and mobile payments programs to their customers via PayPal’s API platform.

Business Startup
Join us as we offer insights into the startup business world. This track delivers a variety of sessions from how to write a business plan and making SEO work for you to conversing with a panel of venture capitalists.

Mobility
Learn how to capitalize on the growing m-commerce opportunity and how you can monetize your business. Sessions will discuss the key monetization models for mobile applications/web and will show how to leverage PayPal mobile APIs to make money from ringtones to physical goods.

eCommerce with eBay
Everything you want to know about the largest e-commerce opportunity on the Web is covered in the E-Commerce with eBay track. Sessions will provide technical details and business know-how from eBay’s powerful API platform — and how we can help you make money.

I plan on focusing on the sessions taking place in the mobility & eCommerce with eBay tracks. But if you click on the above links and see a session you’d particularly like me to live-blog from, please let me know. Also, to follow other official blogs coming out of the two-day conference, check out www.X.com and PayPal-Labs Blog.

You can follow the entire discussion on Twitter by searching the hashtag: #ppxi09.

Cheers,
RBH

The report says that online shopping is moving from a transaction mentality to one that also embodies discovery, entertainment and social bonding experiences. Something that I’ve witnessed first-hand in the 2 years I’ve been here at eBay.

Five of the report’s key ecommerce trends for 2010 include:

1. A Smarter Mobility:
Smartphone growth with its wider screens and compelling applications will continue to accelerate in 2010. Just as ecommerce sites have contributed to sales in physical stores, we will see more aggressive pushes by mobile applications to drive ecommerce sales. One emerging way will be through Augmented Reality (AR), where information is overlaid on images or video.

We’ve seen this already in 2009, let alone 2010. eBay says that shoppers will spend $400 million on eBay using its iPhone app by the end of this year.

2. Fulfillment Rules:
More retailers will consider regional fulfillment centers because of the volatility of fuel costs and marketplace demand for accelerated delivery times. To minimize inventory, drop shipping from manufacturers will gain traction. Reverse logistics will also be a point of emphasis as recapturing the value of goods not only fits into heightened environmental concerns, but for businesses represents an opportunity to reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction and increase marketing opportunities by offering refurbished products.

3. Customer Service is Everywhere:
As consumers utilize an increasing number of communication channels – from texting to responding to YouTube videos, their expectations to access information, express themselves, and receive feedback in an immediate time frame, poses a complex challenge that e-retailers are beginning to take very seriously. As a result, Call Centers are being replaced with Customer Experience Centers that deliver consistent superior touchpoints with consumers over a wide spectrum of communication channels.

4. Being Relevant is Virally Important:
Whether they like it or not, e-retailers are expected and valued as more than suppliers of goods and services. Accordingly, they must proactively take on personalities that their market segments feel comfortable with. This relevancy requires e-retailers actively listen, converse and engage in a variety of areas such as online destinations and social responsibility forums,

I see this every day when I’m on Twitter, Facebook, the blog, YouTube, Flickr, etc. – you name it. I’m communicating directly with individual business owners; people making a living online through sales, and supplementing that online business with online communication; having an open dialogue with their existing and potential buyers. The actual transaction has become only a part of a much larger, relationship-building process.

5. Business Intelligence Meets Business Process:
While companies retain a wealth of data, they often lack the capture tools, analytical processes and personnel bandwidth to turn this information into actionable activities. In 2010, there will be a greater commitment to unleash the intelligence residing in data banks to create sophisticated marketing and sales business processes that provide competitive advantages.

My personal belief is that consumers have evolved to the point where they want the best of both worlds when it comes to shopping online. Not only do they want exceptional service, great value and an overall smooth transaction from beginning to end, they also benefit from having what is perceived to be a direct relationship with the individual or business from whom they are making the purchase. As an online consumer myself, I would like the relatively hiccup-free shopping experience I’d expect to get from a large, faceless big-box retailer all while getting the personal relationship and attention that I get from shopping at my local Mom & Pop store.

I realize I’m just one person though. So, having read the “eCommerce trends for 2010″, what do you think? How many of them are in line with your business plans for the year ahead? Were there any surprises? Anything glaring there that you hadn’t thought of? Also, where does eBay sit in all of this? We know the company is doing well with regard to mobile ecommerce (or “m-commerce”) but what about the other trends? Maintaining relevancy for example?

Would really love to hear your thoughts on this one.

Cheers,
RBH

From the release:
“We are thrilled to partner with Petfinder.com as part of our ongoing dedication to connecting pets with loving and healthy homes,” said Martin Herbst, General Manager of Kijiji U.S. “Kijiji.com strives to be a safe, family-friendly resource devoted to the humane treatment of animals and safe pet adoption. Our partnership with Petfinder.com and our proactive customer service team helps us achieve this goal.”

I sat down with Martin earlier this year to talk about the site and the enhancements they made back in April. I’ve used Kijiji a few times over the past year and have had nothing but good experiences to date. I also know a few people that have found their pets through Kijiji, including a colleague of mine that sits next to me at work.

I had a beautiful golden retriever from when I was 12 until I was 26. I’ve been pushing my wife for a dog ever since but she has (wisely) resisted my requests because she knows she’ll end up having to be the primary care giver in the week. However, I’ll be checking Kijiji out if and when I get the greenlight.

Cheers,
RBH

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month so the first post I’m getting off my chest upon my return concerns a charity auction currently running on eBay called “Bling my Bra”.

Back in April, I profiled John Lawson of ColderICE and his “Chest for Breast Auction” that ultimately ended up raising over $3,000 for breast cancer research. The winner of that celebrity auction, Galleria Gifts‘ Melinda Jackson, was inspired and partnered with Beth Cherkowsky (her co-host on RRBRadio.com) to take it a step further and, using eBay Giving Works, came up with a concept that sees a number of her friends and peers submitting “blinged out bras” for sale on eBay.

Over 40 bras have been submitted for sale to date and they continue to receive more each week. From the superhero-themed bra above to the “Colorado Boulder Holder”, there are a lot of both funny and fun entries. All proceeds go to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

If you’d like to be a part of an extremely worthwhile cause and have some fun in the process, head over to eBay.com and type “blingmybra” in the search term to see all active listings.

Cheers!
RBH

“Our third quarter results were strong with PayPal gaining momentum and market share worldwide and our core eBay business showing positive trends,” said eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe. “We’re delivering on our commitments, executing on our plans and operating smarter and faster.”

Net income on a GAAP basis was $349.7 million or $0.27 per diluted share, and non-GAAP net income was $501.5 million or $0.38 per diluted share.

GAAP operating margin decreased to 19.8% for the quarter, compared to 24.7% for the same period last year. Non-GAAP operating margin decreased to 28.4% for the quarter, compared to 31.8% for the same period last year. The decrease in operating margins was caused primarily by the recently acquired Bill Me Later, the weaker U.S. dollar, and the company’s continuing shift to faster growing, lower margin businesses, partially offset by cost controls.

eBay Inc. generated $738.2 million of operating cash flow during the third quarter. Free cash flow during the quarter was $563.5 million.

Unfortunately I will be unable to live-blog our earnings via Twitter this quarter and instead, encourage you to listen along to the live earnings call by clicking here. Also, you can get up-to-the-minute information at both eBay Ink Blog News and ebayinc.com.

I’ll be back in the office next Monday as scheduled.

Cheers,
RBH