PayPal Access was recently released as a part of the X.commerce ecosystem, the idea is that merchants can offer an alternative login method to users of their ecommerce websites allowing users to simply login using their usual PayPal credentials. Users without an existing PayPal account can register on the spot.
So if you’re anything like me, someone who spends most their life on the internet, you’ll have a squillion website logins to remember, or you’ll end up using the same password over and over again on hundreds of websites. On top of this there are always concerns over the security of the hundreds of companies holding your personal information.
When proceeding to the checkout on a Magento website with PayPal Access installed, you will be greeted with 3 options, register, login as normal or login using your PayPal details. On entering your PayPal account credentials, you will be asked if you are happy with PayPal sharing certain information about yourself with the store in question, much like authorising a 3rd party application access to your Facebook account.
From a customer’s perspective then surly this is a great thing, using one quick, secure and painless login for all sites, safe in the knowledge that your personal information is being held securely by an organisation like PayPal.
So what does this bring to retailers apart from the obvious benefits to their customers? Well PayPal are suggesting that the convenience to the site users will have a dramatic effect on reducing cart abandonment, increasing conversion and boosting sales.
Although the benefits seem clear to the customer, I am not so sure if retailers are going to be quite so keen to get on-board, why – well probably the most important thing to retailers apart from making sales is to be able to collect information from their customers allowing direct marketing or the creation of a better customer experience.
It seems therefore PayPal is putting a barrier between the customer and the merchant, so I find it hard to see why retailers will be backing PayPal on this technology.
That said though PayPal has a huge base of verified users, something in the region of 100 million, and I do believe that the sign up and register process on websites needs streamlining if not eradicating completely, so I think PayPal are heading in the right direction here, but whether this is solution is adopted on mass remains to be seen.
PayPal Access is now available to Magento users, and is compatible with Magento Community Version 1.4 and up. For more information or to trial PayPal Access on your Magento website, please contact us.
