Paypal’s new look, whilst gearing up for more competition

One can argue that Google Checkout is not exactly a competitor to Paypal, since they are not exactly the same. Google Checkout speeds up your checkout process while Paypal is a complete online payment system. To me, the mere fact that Google Checkout makes online shopping faster (by auto-filling your shipping address and making payment for you without sharing your credit/debit card information) must have made Paypal sit up and offer Paypal Express Checkout.

Paypal says their Express Checkout is “quick”:

Customers don’t need to enter their postage and billing information when making a purchase – PayPal already has the information stored.

From another page:

What is Express Checkout?
Express Checkout is PayPal’s fastest checkout solution. Buyers pay you easily, quickly, and securely using their stored PayPal information.

Paypal in recent times has been tightening their romance with Yahoo! Inc., in several ways:

• Yahoo! Search Advertisers that use PayPal Express Checkout will have a blue/white button under their ad, showing that shoppers can checkout easily if they’re using Paypal.
• Yahoo! Publishers can receive their monthly earnings via Paypal.
• Yahoo! Wallet users can add their Paypal account instead of their credit/debit card account details.
• Paypal is tightly integrated into online stores built using Yahoo! Merchant Solutions. Thus merchants can choose to accept Paypal on their stores exclusively or in addition to credit/debit cards.
• Soon, Yahoo! Search Marketing advertisers will be able to pay for their ad campaigns via Paypal.

Do not think Paypal is resting on its oars. Not with the recent entry of AmazonPayments.
Paypal has been working on a better interface of its website for sometime now. Being an online merchant that accepts Paypal myself, I got an email from Paypal this morning. These are the highlights:

• PayPal’s home page is getting a new look in a few weeks’ time
• Paypal logo and checkout buttons will all change
• Paypal will be offering local phone support in some more countries
• Disputes and claims will be reconciled faster (now thats a real claim 🙂 )

I am a Paypal fan, and today is exactly a year since I have been using my own business account. What can I say? With more competition for Paypal, things can only get better.