PayPal adds mobile ordering, payment in Magento's toolbox

James Wester for mobilepaymentstoday.com writes: Through a partnership with e-commerce solution provider Magento, PayPal is taking its mobile disruption a step further. The company announced yesterday on its corporate blog that it has created two extensions for Magento-powered online stores that expand the mobile capabilities of online merchants and make it possible for any e-commerce retailer to create new uses for PayPal's mobile application and mobile point-of-sale solutions.

Magento is owned by PayPal's parent company eBay. Its open source tools power the online stores of more than 150,000 retailers, including some big names like Nike, Office Max and Warby Parker. The company offers both an enterprise version and a free version of its e-commerce tools and the new PayPal extensions will be available for both versions.

Pay anywhere; pay ahead

With PayPal's new in-aisle selling extension, merchants can connect their online Magento stores to PayPal Here, PayPal's mobile POS application. It's PayPal's tool that competes with other mobile POS solutions like Square or Intuit's GoPayment and combines a card-reading dongle with the application to accept credit and debit cards. The Magento extension lets associates process transactions anywhere in a store using a tablet or smartphone running the PayPal Here app.

When in-aisle selling is enabled on a merchant's site, an associate can enter a purchase into an online shopping cart running on a smartphone or tablet. The extension creates a "Charge with PayPal Here" option as a payment method. Clicking that button transfers the items in the shopping cart, as well as any other billing or shipping information, into the PayPal Here application on the device, where the transaction can be completed using a debit or credit card.

The in-aisle selling extension includes the flexibility to process order fulfillment either in-store or through delivery. Merchants can also send customers an electronic receipt for their purchases.

PayPal is offering an order-ahead extension as well. It turns PayPal's mobile application into a remote ordering tool for Magento merchants and ordering and payment happen directly through the Paypal app. Customers can browse a merchant's menu, pay using their PayPal accounts and arrange for pick-up.

Merchants have the option of using a customer's name, a pick-up time or even through a QR code generated on an e-receipt to manage order fulfillment. The extension includes an in-store fulfillment console that can be accessed through a browser running on a tablet or computer. 

"By solving real customer pain points like waiting in line or carrying bulky merchandise, merchants can help improve service, attract more customers, and drive more repeat purchases," said James Barrese, Paypal's CTO, on the company blog. "PayPal is on a mission around the world to make it easier to enable better experiences."

The extensions are currently available as alpha releases through the Magento extension market, but PayPal said it will be pushing updates to the extensions frequently based on developer feedback.