PayPal to Launch Promotion for Express Checkout Merchants

PayPal Inc. will pour as much as $100 million into a new promotional campaign aimed at driving traffic to merchant sites that accept PayPal. The campaign, which kicks off Nov. 23 and includes cash-rebate offers between $10 and $20 as well as free shipping when consumers use PayPal, is entirely underwritten by the San Jose, Calif.-based processor. At the same time, the company will pay for advertising that promotes the rebates and free-shipping offers along with the merchants offering them. The campaign is timed to take advantage of the upcoming holiday buying season. “We hope this will drive more volume to merchants that accept PayPal and to eBay sellers,” says a spokeswoman for PayPal, a unit of online auctioneer eBay Inc. So far, “thousands” of online merchants have signed up for the rebate program, the spokeswoman says, without being more specific. That program runs until May 15. The free-shipping offer lasts until Dec. 15 and has attracted 20 merchants so far. Merchants must be based in North America and offer PayPal's Express Checkout system to qualify for the promotion, and can sign up to participate in the campaign at a Web site PayPal has set up, www.paypal.com/advantage. Express Checkout, which PayPal introduced in 2005, allows PayPal accountholders to buy from Web sites with a three-click checkout process, which includes moving from the merchant's site to PayPal to validate the payment and back to the merchant site. PayPal refuses to say what proportion of its total merchant base now offers Express Checkout, but the spokeswoman confirms the promotion is partly aimed at encouraging more to do so. “Our buyers like that three-click experience, and our merchants when they integrate Express Checkout see increased conversion,” she says. She adds that the processor has not made a projection for the increase in transaction volume expected from the promotion.