Business and Finance
PayPal and Venmo Unveil Six New Innovations to Revolutionize Commerce
Company introduces reimagined checkout and guest checkout experiences, new advanced offers platform for merchants, and new consumer app to earn cash back and give customers more reasons to shop with PayPal
New Venmo enhancements enable local small businesses to be discovered and grow
SAN JOSE, Calif. /PRNewswire/ — PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL) today announced six new innovations the company is piloting and bringing to market this year to revolutionize commerce through artificial intelligence (AI) driven personalization for both merchants and consumers. During the PayPal First Look keynote, Alex Chriss, President and CEO, introduced: a completely new PayPal checkout experience that radically speeds up check out for consumers and helps merchants convert transactions like never before; Fastlane by PayPal, a dramatically faster and smarter guest checkout experience; Smart Receipts, giving customers AI-personalized recommendations from merchants to keep them coming back; the PayPal advanced offers platform so merchants can provide relevant, personalized, real-time offers to consumers and drive more sales; a reinvented PayPal consumer app giving shoppers new ways to earn cash back and more reasons to use PayPal; and, Venmo’s enhanced business profiles, so small businesses can find and engage new customers, and grow their businesses.
“PayPal is on a mission to revolutionize commerce, globally, and today we are starting the next chapter,” said Alex Chriss, President and CEO, PayPal. “With nearly 400 million consumer accounts, and 35 million merchant accounts, PayPal handles transactions for about a quarter of the world’s e-commerce transactions each year, but more importantly, shoppers trust PayPal to power their payments.”
Chriss continued, “PayPal is introducing six new innovations that will not only solve real customer pain points, but we believe will change the world of payments and commerce. From new solutions for merchants to speed up checkout and personalize offers, to a new consumer app that will give our loyal customers more reasons to shop with PayPal, to the next generation of Venmo designed to be the growth platform for local small businesses, PayPal has always brought the future of money to our consumers and merchants and today marks the next revolution.”
With digital commerce expected to exceed $6 trillion in 20241, merchants need new, advanced ways to speed consumers through checkout in a seamless way that reduces lost sales. Additionally, consumers are continuously looking to stretch their budgets and get as much value while shopping as possible. PayPal’s global scale and extensive data set, combined with the power of AI, will deliver the next generation of value for both consumers and merchants.
Transforming Checkout
Checkout is the last interaction between a consumer and a merchant, and while it seems so simple, any friction can disrupt the moment. Business owners want to focus on the next sale and consumers are looking to remove any annoying interruptions like password prompts or lagging response times. To address this, PayPal has massively accelerated the checkout process to get customers to choose PayPal, integrate passkeys to enable customers to log in with their face or fingerprint with one tap, and to improve latency. In fact, this will reduce latency by as much as 50%2, and enable customers to check out twice as fast, all with the same level of security and trust they have come to expect from PayPal. Additionally, the new PayPal checkout will also leverage AI to get smarter and faster over time.
Introducing Fastlane by PayPal
Merchants are losing out on sales because the guest checkout process is both slow and cumbersome. Additionally, shoppers do not often sign in or sign up while browsing, and when they are ready to check out, they must find their password, update their credit card information, or shipping address. To help, PayPal is introducing Fastlane by PayPal, a new one-click guest checkout experience that merchants using PayPal’s platform will be able to offer their shoppers, allowing them to make a fast and painless purchase. Customers simply save their information with Fastlane to check out in as little as one tap. No username or password to remember, no personal information to update, and no need to share a credit card with businesses all over the web.
PayPal has been piloting Fastlane by PayPal with a group of merchants and are seeing astounding early results. Select merchants on BigCommerce, a leading open software-as-a-service (SaaS) ecommerce platform and longtime PayPal partner, have seen early results showing that Fastlane can recognize 70% of guests3 and accelerated checkout speeds of nearly 40% compared to a traditional guest checkout process.4
Introducing PayPal Smart Receipts
Merchants want to incentivize customers to come back, and consumers want to find the best deals, so PayPal is eliminating the guesswork for both with the introduction of Smart Receipts. When consumers shop with PayPal, they will receive a receipt that allows them to not only track their purchase, but also harnesses AI to predict what they may want to buy next from that merchant. As a result, now merchants will be able to include a personalized recommendation along with a cashback reward offer on the receipt.
As almost 45% of PayPal customers globally open their email receipts everyday5 – an incredible open rate – this could mean tens of millions of merchants and hundreds of millions of consumers seeing timely, hyper-relevant recommendations and rewards in these receipts. This increases the opportunities for merchants to re-engage directly with their customers, increasing the probability of repeat shopping and business growth.
PayPal is also leveraging AI-powered suggestions that are based on shopper behavior data, combined with the scale of what PayPal can see across the web. Through personalized AI, PayPal is giving any sized merchant the power of being one of the largest retailers in the world.
Introducing PayPal Advanced Offers Platform
Today, when consumers shop online their experience includes ads generated by their browsing behavior only, which can be irrelevant and frustrating. In response, PayPal will use unique customer insights to build a dynamic, truly personalized advanced offers platform giving merchants the ability to reach customers based on what they have actually bought across the internet, down to the stock keeping unit (SKU) and the individual product. This new, performance-based offers platform has the potential to use AI to organize and analyze data from nearly half a trillion dollars’ worth of merchant transactions globally6. The platform will also allow merchants to customize offers for customers, and merchants will only pay for performance, not impressions or clicks. For PayPal consumers, it means they will get more relevant offers, and more opportunities to earn rewards.
PayPal is also building transparent, easy-to-use privacy controls so if a customer does not want their data shared with merchants to personalize their shopping experience – they can opt in or out.
Reinventing the PayPal app
PayPal is also reinventing the PayPal app to give loyal customers even more reasons to shop and pay with PayPal every day. Too often consumers are served the top items from the largest merchants that can afford to buy the best search terms. Additionally, consumers are still feeling the inflationary pinch and looking for ways to spend smarter and find the best deals. This is why PayPal is introducing CashPass to give customers access to hundreds of exciting, personalized cash back offers from top brands in the U.S. A user will simply need to tap on the offer, shop at that business, and check out with PayPal. CashPass uses AI to organize personalized offers for customers based on shopping behaviors, and customers will regularly discover new cash back offers giving them more reasons to visit the app.
Starting in March, PayPal is planning to launch CashPass with an amazing set of launch partners, so consumers can access offers from merchants such as Best Buy, eBay, McDonald’s, Priceline, Ticketmaster, Uber, and Walmart.
PayPal CashPass users will also be able to stack with other PayPal rewards such as cash back from the PayPal Cashback Mastercard®. Users can then put cash back into a PayPal Savings account and earn more on top.
Introducing the Next Generation of Venmo Business Profiles
Venmo introduced business profiles in 2021 to provide an affordable and easy way for businesses to accept payments and grow their business and has grown to a community of more than 90 million active accounts. Small businesses rely on word-of-mouth, social media, and reviews on other sites for referrals. It can be difficult to stand out on social media, and one bad review can set their business back. Venmo is solving this by introducing enhanced Venmo business profiles to help small businesses be discovered like never before. The next evolution of business profiles will add subscribe buttons, profile rankings, and the ability to offer promotions to consumers, bringing powerful new ways for businesses to drive traffic, generate sales, and more meaningfully grow their business through increased visibility in the Venmo app.
For consumers, they will be able to discover top-ranked businesses endorsed by their network and enjoy cashback deals when supporting local businesses in their community. No other mobile payment service has a social feed as active, useful and as personal as Venmo, and this is a revolution in providing real-time offers and promotions at a hyper-local level for small businesses. The same type of privacy controls will be available on Venmo, as on PayPal.
All of these new experiences will begin rolling out in the United States throughout 2024.
For more information, visit http://www.paypal.com/us/whats-new/first-look.
1 Insider Intelligence, “Ecommerce growth worldwide will pick up before tapering off,” Aug. 23, 2023
2 Based on PayPal internal data from October to November 2023.
3 Based on PayPal internal data from October 1 to November 2, 2023.
4 Based on PayPal Internal data from November 2 to November 18, 2023.
5 Based on PayPal internal data from November 1, 2023 to January 8, 2024.
6 Based on PayPal internal data from Global Branded XO TPV for the 12-month period between Dec’22 to Nov’23.
About PayPal
PayPal has remained at the forefront of the digital commerce revolution for more than 25 years. By leveraging technology to make sending money and shopping more convenient, affordable, and secure, the PayPal platform is empowering hundreds of millions of consumers and merchants in more than 200 markets to join and thrive in the global economy. For more information, visit https://www.paypal.com, https://about.pypl.com/ and https://investor.pypl.com/.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains “forward-looking” statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements and information relate to future events and future performance and reflect, among other things, PayPal’s plans with respect to product innovation. Forward looking statements may be identified by words such as “seek”, “believe”, “plan”, “estimate”, “anticipate”, “expect”, “project”, “forecast”, or intend”, and statements that an event or result “may”” “will”, “should”, “could”, or “might” occur or be achieved and any other similar expressions.
Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties which may cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. More information about these and other factors can be found in PayPal Holdings, Inc.’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), and its future filings with the SEC.
The forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date hereof. PayPal expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to disseminate any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in the expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.
SOURCE PayPal Holdings, Inc.
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(Family Features) Clinical trials help researchers studying chronic conditions answer important questions about the diseases and their treatment options. However, uncertainty about what to expect and a lack of knowledge about how to get started can prevent patients from joining a clinical trial.
Choosing to take part in a clinical trial means helping a study team figure out if a new method of diagnosis, treatment or prevention is effective. If you live with a chronic condition, such as Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, and want to help find answers for others who share your experience, a clinical trial is an option to consider.
Once you identify a study that interests you, you’ll want to talk with the professionals involved in your ongoing treatment, a clinical research coordinator and your family to gather information necessary to determine whether the clinical trial is a good fit.
To find additional information about clinical trials and begin exploring trials in your area, visit crohnscolitisfoundation.org, and consider these steps for participating in a trial.
1. Talking with Your Doctor
Your gastroenterologist and other care providers can help determine whether a clinical trial is right for you and may be able to help point you toward recommended trials. It’s important to ask if or how your doctor will continue to be involved in your care if you participate in a trial.
2. Finding a Study
If you need help beyond your care team in identifying clinical trial opportunities in your area, organizations dedicated to your condition can be a good resource. For example, the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation offers an online Clinical Trial Finder for individuals with inflammatory bowel disease.
3. Talking with the Research Coordinator
A clinical trial research coordinator can provide details specific to your circumstances and needs. You can discuss potential benefits and risks, why the trial is being conducted and who is involved in the health care team. You can talk about past treatments and how this study may differ from your previous experiences. Other questions you might ask include what your options are if the trial doesn’t work, any costs you might expect and what your personal commitment will be.
4. Evaluating the Fit for You
Once you have the necessary information, you’ll be able to consider whether you’re ready to move forward with registering for the trial. You’ll want to weigh factors like your time commitment, travel distance and whether the trial will affect your personal or professional obligations.
Photos courtesy of Shutterstock
SOURCE:
Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation
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News
A boycott campaign fuels tension between Black shoppers and Black-owned brands – evoking the long struggle for ‘consumer citizenship’
Target’s recent decision to end its diversity programs has sparked backlash among Black consumers and entrepreneurs. While some call for a boycott, others caution that it could harm Black businesses more than the retailer.
Timeka N. Tounsel, University of Washington
Some Black consumers may be breaking up with Target this February.
It all started late last month, when the retailer announced that it was ending its diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The move drew widespread rebuke from social justice organizers, including New Birth Missionary Baptist Church Pastor Dr. Jamal Bryant. Although Target said one set of its racial-equity initiatives had already been scheduled to conclude, the timing was notable: The move came just days after the White House called for a federal DEI ban, and as several other companies took similar actions.
Beyond renaming its “supplier diversity” team – now called “supplier engagement” – and ending “diversity-focused surveys,” Target hasn’t said what the change will mean for the many Black entrepreneurs who sell everything from coffee to sunscreen on its shelves. The webpage for the retailer’s Black Beyond Measure initiative, which highlights dozens of Black-founded brands and connects business owners to a program designed to “democratize access to retail education,” remains active.
But Target’s critics, including Minneapolis-based civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong, view the move as a surrender to the new presidential administration’s attack on equity programs. In a news conference outside Target’s Minnesota headquarters on Jan. 30, 2025, Armstrong called for a nationwide boycott of the store to begin on the first day of Black History Month.
While many social media users posted in support of the boycott, some Black founders whose brands are stocked by Target – and there are dozens of them – have been more conflicted. Tabitha Brown, whose products can be found in various aisles, from books to cooking appliances, asked customers to reconsider boycotting Target. Withholding their dollars, Brown insisted, will hurt Black businesses far more than the corporations that sell their products.
This request for restraint garnered a mixed response on social media. Some Black consumers accused Black business owners of selling out the very racial community that contributed to their success.
So, why would a Black business owner ask consumers to patronize a retailer that signaled it doesn’t care about Black customers? And how did something as mundane as where people buy toilet paper and shampoo become a litmus test for racial consciousness in the first place?
Black consumers and the fight for dignity
The marketplace has long been a battleground where Black Americans have sought to assert their citizenship. Most of the nation’s biggest household brands didn’t begin to take African American consumers seriously until after World War II. Before that shift, advertisements and product packaging were more likely to feature degrading Black caricatures to appeal to white shoppers, than to address Black consumers directly.
This segregated commercial landscape reinforced the belief among some community members that Black people would not be taken seriously as citizens until they were taken seriously as consumers. They would need to vote with their dollars, patronizing only those brands and retailers that respected them.
In my research on marketing campaigns aimed at Black women, I’ve examined how the struggle for consumer citizenship complicated the dynamic between Black entrepreneurs and consumers. On the one hand, businesses have long leveraged Black ownership as a unique selling proposition in and of itself, urging shoppers to view Black brand loyalty as a path to collective racial progress.
Unlike their larger competitors, Black entrepreneurs relied on their racial community to stay afloat. Patronizing African American businesses could therefore be framed as a racial duty. Conversely, as African American advertising pioneers made clear, recognition from big brands was a political victory of sorts because it signaled that Black dollars were just as valuable as anyone else’s. https://www.youtube.com/embed/SAFubUnsl3Y?wmode=transparent&start=0 A short documentary from The Advertising Club of New York featuring iconic ads from African American marketer Tom Burrell.
Competing for Black dollars
Corporate attention to Black consumers ebbs and flows in a cycle that is especially noticeable in the beauty and personal care industry. In seasons of limited competition for African American customers, entrepreneurs typically thrive, even while they struggle to meet the capital demands of a growing brand. Their success, however, beckons larger corporations, which then seek to capitalize on consumer niches they previously ignored.
Two common approaches that mass market brands pursue to compete for Black dollars include acquiring smaller, established Black brands and developing their own niche products. Large corporations deployed both strategies during a period of intense expansion into the beauty market of the 1980s.
Black owners tried to stave off their competition by creating a special emblem that alerted shoppers to their authenticity. Then, as now, social justice organizations, such as Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Operation PUSH, also initiated boycotts and urged Black consumers not to choose “lipstick over liberation.”
Nevertheless, many Black entrepreneurs sold their brands, and by 1986 nearly half of the Black hair care market was no longer Black-owned.
A linked fate
Parsing winners and losers within the world of Black enterprise is as difficult now as it was in earlier periods. African American business owners often possess a cultural consciousness that distinguishes their brands, even when they can’t match the resources of larger competitors. And as they figure out how to survive an uneven playing field, Black entrepreneurs sometimes face accusations of betraying their racial community.
In a market governed by the law of supply and demand, Black consumers benefit from increased competition. Yet, racial loyalty sometimes asks that they eschew these benefits for the sake of keeping Black dollars in Black hands.
Four years ago, when Target launched its Black Beyond Measure funding initiative, it seemed that the retailer had struck a rare balance in supporting Black brands and their customers. In addition to curating a collection of products to lure shoppers, Target used the campaign as an opportunity to position entrepreneurs to flourish well beyond Black History Month.
Now, as Black consumers and business owners weigh varying responses to the retailer’s decision to reverse their commitment to DEI values, one question endures: Do Black dollars matter?
Timeka N. Tounsel, Associate Professor of Black Studies in Communication, University of Washington
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Consumer Corner
Trump’s opening tariff salvo will hurt US consumers − following through on Canada, Mexico threats will increase the price pain
Jason Reed, University of Notre Dame
If U.S. voters reelected Donald Trump hoping for relief from higher prices, his recent threats to impose tariffs on America’s three largest trade partners might make them think again.
On Saturday, Feb. 1, Trump announced 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico and 10% tariffs on China, which he said would take effect on Tuesday, Feb. 4. While markets braced for the news to some degree, they still saw a steep premarket sell-off on Monday, Feb. 3, followed by morning volatility.
While Canada and Mexico negotiated monthlong reprieves on Monday, the new tariffs on China went into effect as expected Tuesday, Feb. 4. And while the ultimate shape of Trump’s tariff policy remains to be seen, the president warned that American consumers could feel “some pain” as a result.
Given my training as an economist and finance professor, I think Trump could be right on that score. In fact, if the tariffs go into effect, they could spell disaster for the Federal Reserve’s inflation reduction efforts.
From grocery stores to homes
U.S. consumers might be surprised to find out that almost every economic sector could be affected by this opening salvo of tariffs, should they go ahead in March. Imports from Mexico and Canada reached close to US$1 trillion in 2024, almost double the amount the U.S. imports from China.
The U.S. is particularly reliant on Mexico for fresh fruits and vegetables, and on Canada for lumber. So if the tariffs go into effect, Americans who have been waiting for home prices to ease may have to continue waiting, as tariffs on lumber and other building materials could worsen the affordable-housing crunch. And let’s not even talk about avocado prices.
Meanwhile, the 10% tariffs on Chinese goods will likely boost the price of electronics, and China has already imposed retaliatory measures. Trump has also proposed 25% tariffs on Taiwan and its semiconductor industry, in an attempt to push Taiwanese companies to invest more in U.S. manufacturing. If that tariff were to go into effect, prices for U.S. consumers would be even higher.
A tax by any other name …
Tariffs are an import tax. They’re passed through the supply chain in the form of higher prices and are eventually paid by consumers. Traditionally, governments have used tariffs as a fiscal tool to encourage businesses and consumers to move away from foreign-made products and support domestic businesses instead.
In theory, new tariffs could encourage foreign businesses to invest in the U.S. and make more stuff on American soil. Unfortunately, domestic manufacturing has seen a systemic decline since the 1980s, resulting in lower prices for consumers but severely limiting U.S.-produced products. In the short term, at least, import taxes on Canadian, Mexican and Chinese products would ultimately be paid by U.S. consumers.
Although this round of tariff threats may seem arbitrary to some, the Trump administration says it considers tariffs deeply intertwined with national security concerns. Stephen Miran, Trump’s pick to chair the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, has laid out a path for Trump’s tariff plan, which he says is aimed at putting American industry on fairer ground against the rest of the world.
In the long term, it’s unclear whether Trump’s threatened trade war will bring domestic manufacturing back to the U.S. and start a new industrial renaissance. In the meantime, American consumers will likely be stuck holding the bag.
Jason Reed, Associate Teaching Professor of Finance, University of Notre Dame
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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