Online payment service PayPal is funding some back-to-school promotions by PayPal-accepting merchants, preparing a new web site and testing updated icons as it tries to fend off Google’s encroachment into payments with Google Checkout.
More than a dozen merchants are featured in the back-to-school promotion. Among them are BarnesandNoble.com, No. 33 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, which offers $10 off on purchases of $40 or more when the customer pays with PayPal, and HP Home & Home Office Store, No. 5 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, offering free photo paper with ink purchases. Some of the promotions are funded by PayPal, and others by the participating merchant, a PayPal spokeswoman says.
“We can offer incentives and the merchants can offer incentives, and we will continue to do both,” Stephanie Tilenius, vice president and general manager of PayPal Merchant Services, which is responsible for off-eBay PayPal services, tells Internet Retailer. PayPal is owned by online marketplace eBay Inc.
Google Checkout also has a back-to-school promotion with more than a dozen merchants that accept Google’s payment option, but those discounts are funded by the retailers. Google and PayPal engaged in a coupon war last fall, with each offering tens of millions of dollars worth of coupons to entice consumers to use their services. Google has not said whether it plans to offer consumers incentives to use Google Checkout this holiday season. “We’ll have more information closer to the holiday,” says Tom Oliveri, marketing lead for Google Checkout.
The PayPal promotion features offers in four age groups, aimed at kids in elementary school, middle school, high school and college. Besides promoting the merchants participating in the PayPal promotion, the back-to-school landing page takes visitors to comparison shopping site TheFind.com to view offers from other retailers. PayPal says it surveyed kids to find out what they consider cool so it could feature those items.
Other changes are in store for PayPal. The company is testing a new home page that features tabbed navigation, site search and frequently asked questions on the home page.
PayPal also is trying out new icons that search engine Yahoo—which is increasingly aligned with PayPal in their common struggle against Google—will place on paid search ads by PayPal-accepting icons. Yahoo now places a blue shopping cart icon on ads from those PayPal merchants, but those icons do not include the PayPal logo. An icon that says Google Checkout appears on paid search ads on Google by retailers that accept Google Checkout as a payment option.
“We’re testing a bunch of different icons,” says PayPal’s Tilenius. “You’ll see different buttons pop up, and some will say PayPal.”
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