PayPal wants you to put your cards away.
The eBay subsidiary today announced a major app update that will enhance the company’s offerings at brick-and-mortar stores and make a grab for the mobile wallet crown. The updated app (v. 5.0) is available for Android devices but has not yet hit the iTunes store.
The reason for the iOS delay may be due to difficulties with the software development kit for iOS devices. Developers have expressed dissatisfaction with the devkit, specifically its documentation.
The app opens to display a user’s location and highlights merchants in the vicinity that accept PayPal payments at the point of sale. Users can check in and order ahead at some of these stores in order to skip the line on arrival. This feature has been tested at Jamba Juice in the US and at various other merchants including McDonald’s in Europe.
The app also includes a list of the offers and coupons the user may have received from stores that accept PayPal payments. The coupons are applied automatically to stores where purchases are made using the app.
Hill Ferguson, VP of global product at PayPal, said, “The payment is what we want to make disappear.” Most consumers don’t have a problem with using their cards, which is a major roadblock for mobile wallet adoption. But credit cards can’t help you skip lines, and PayPal is betting that features like this will push adoption and use of its wallet.
Focusing on helping consumers skip lines and easing friction in the secondary factors in the payments process such as managing coupons, waiting for the check, and the like is PayPal’s current play. Uber is a notable example of a successful take on the strategy of making payments disappear for the consumer.
PayPal’s other features, such as its P2P function, are still in the app, but seem to be secondary in importance to the enhanced onsite purchasing features.
PayPal has 130 million account holders. It has strong consumer buy-in, but still has a ways to go with merchant adoption.
Ferguson demonstrates the app here.