PayPal has announced its intention to enter the daily deals market in the first quarter of 2012. The company believes it can develop better coupons than Groupon or LivingSocial, as PayPal has the ability to use its data on customers’ past buying habits to tailor offers to each customer.
“The experience is going to be completely different than anyone else’s through and through,” [PayPal President Scott] Thompson said. “We’ll only give you something that we think fits the category of unique and relevant. Everyone else is going to bombard you.”
PayPal hopes that this advantage will help them achieve their revenue goal of $7 billion by 2013; comparatively, PayPal earned $3.4 billion in 2010. PayPal currently has relationships with merchants such as Target Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Best Buy Co., as well as 103 million consumers who currently hold PayPal accounts.
Additionally, PayPal’s deals will focus on the mobile platform as a means of getting a head start on wireless payments before NFC catches on. Moreover, this will also help PayPal establish itself as a payment option for in store purchases. Ultimately, PayPal hopes to be used at the POS as commonly as any of the payment card networks.