PayPal takes its online payments service to the store

Online payment specialist PayPal shoppers will be able to use its services to buy in store from next year.

Shoppers in the US will be able to use PayPal to pay in more than seven million stores from next year, and the company says ultimately the alternative payments service could be available internationally as well in future.

PayPal is working with Discover Merchant Services on the innovation, which it says will expand its digital wallet to offline sales as well as online.

Don Kingsborough, PayPal’s vice president of retail, said: “This relationship will deliver a truly seamless digital wallet, available most places consumers shop offline, which offers the speed, simplicity and security already enjoyed by 113 million active PayPal customers online.”

PayPal says shopkeepers will be able to offer its service through their existing relationship with Discover, and will not have to install or upgrade existing point-of-sale (POS) hardware or software. In-store signs will alert consumers to the option of paying via PayPal.

Diane Offereins, president of Discover Payment Services, said: “This initiative will result in real change and innovation for the industry by bringing new technologies to the point of sale that benefit merchants and PayPal customers.”