PayPal X Dev Con spawns Facebook shopping mall
The PayPal X developers conference opened yesterday for developers where they unveiled their new API enabling developers for the first time not to just link to PayPal to handle payments, but to actually build new applications with PayPal embedded within them. Developers can even allow users to sign up for a PayPal account without even visiting the PayPal website to do this.
I’ve been reading the press releases and the (quite frankly boring unless you’re a geek) technical information, but I wanted to bring a flavour of what the new PayPal platform can offer so will cut straight to one application of interest to online businesses which was announced yesterday.
Payvment
For the first time anyone can open up a webstore on Facebook. Payvment enables you to create a store, load it with products, accept payments. If you have already created a page on Facebook for your business you’ll now be able to create a shopping cart so that customers can actually buy from you.
It’s more than just a static webstore though, customers can add purchases from multiple merchants and if they’re buying one item from you they can add items from other retailers to the same shopping cart. By enabling search across the whole of Facebook they’ve created a global selling platform that every retailer can add inventory to.
Ultimately Payvment are turning Facebook into an online shopping mall with multiple retailers but the benefit of a single shopping cart. That’s something that eBay need to sit up and take note of – the ability to add and remove items to a shopping cart from multiple merchants and then make a single payment via PayPal is what eBay has lacked for years. Now it’s available on Facebook which isn’t even known as a destination site for ecommerce.
There are a ton of other PayPal X applications either announced for release yesterday, or that will soon be released. If you’re a developer please do add a quick two line synopsis of your product in comments below and a link to where readers can find more about it. PayPal X is only of interest to our readers if it’s a practical useful application – so what will your PayPal X application do for us?
Leo says
12:37 pm on 04/11/2009
Will a merchant user be able to have the same store over several facebook id accounts or will you have pay for a separate store for each id?
Chris Dawson says
12:44 pm on November 4th, 2009
Good question and haven’t a clue about same store for multiple IDs. Let us know when you find out…
As far as costs go Payvment have this to say in their FAQs:
What does it cost to use the shopping cart web service?
It’s free. Payvment does not charge anything nor do we take any cut of your sales revenue.
Wha..? Free? What’s the catch?
No catch. It’s free. We like money just like everyone else but right now we are more concerned with building great technology to make your life easier. If you are dying to give your money to someone, there are some great charities out there.
Linda says
1:54 pm on November 4th, 2009
I rather like Payvment’s idea of providing a shopping cart as a web service allowing buyers to roam from site to site with a single cart.
From their site
“Then it dawned on us that if a shopping cart was turned into a web service, that would mean it could roam the entire internet free! People can add items to their cart from one place and checkout those items even if they were no longer on the site. ..or it’s even possible to have a single cart with items picked up from multiple retailers. It would have no borders!”
Leo says
1:58 pm on November 4th, 2009
It sounds like a good idea as long as it works and people trust it
Simon says
1:32 pm on 04/11/2009
Great – just what we need. Another channel to sell on.
As if eBay, Amazon Marketplace and our own website wasn’t enough administration!
Chris Dawson says
2:01 pm on November 4th, 2009
Facebook connect would allow someone to add items to your website shopping cart and they’d appear in their cart on Facebook next time they logged in and vice versa. It’s actually really really cool.
Simon says
2:27 pm on November 4th, 2009
Actually – that’s quite nifty, I admit… Might warrant some more investigation once the Christmas rush is over… Thanks Chris!
Sue Bailey says
3:14 pm on November 4th, 2009
Simon, it’s not compulsory
Hereford United Fan says
2:52 pm on 04/11/2009
Looks exciting although managing inventory will become more complicated.
How much will it cost to sell on facebook?
I am also a bit confused. Who will handle the transaction? Is this part of paypal or is payvment a different company?
Will I get seller protection like on paypal?
Leo says
3:09 pm on November 4th, 2009
According to payvment’s websites its currently free. I guess the actual payment part is handled by Paypal but the shopping cart, which can be utilised anywhere you can insert the code, is run by payvment or maybe they piggyback on the Paypal platform and Paypal holds all the data.
The trust part comes from the fact that the actual payment process runs through Paypal website I guess.
The best way to find out is to try it.
Hereford United Fan says
3:33 pm on 04/11/2009
But how much will facebook charge?
Chris Dawson says
3:38 pm on November 4th, 2009
Same as they currently charge you, zilch, nada, nothing, £0.00 per month, $0.00 per year
Hereford United Fan says
8:30 pm on November 4th, 2009
That seems quite good value. This could be a serious competitor to ebay.
northumbrian says
4:19 pm on 04/11/2009
looks as if paypal has joined RBS
The Scottish national flag is a white-on-blue saltire (i.e. a diagonal cross on a coloured background) and it derives from the shape of the cross on which Scotland’s patron saint, St Andrew, was crucified.
Bigpoppa says
10:03 pm on 04/11/2009
Big problem with this. To use it you have to have Facebook Connect installed into your website, not so bad except that the file that needs to be uploaded is called “xd_receiver.htm”.
It’s quite common that most servers cannot use files with an underscore in them, because the server changes the underscore into a forward slash “/, which is a new directory?!?
It simply won’t work with many server setups. If they can fix this issue then the potential is huge.
Sue Bailey says
10:56 pm on November 4th, 2009
Please post some examples of server setups that do this? I’ve never heard of it.
ebuyerfb says
3:52 am on November 5th, 2009
Me neither. Sounds like somebody tried to do something clever with their .htaccess file and broke compatibility with every other proprietary technology.
Simon says
12:35 pm on November 5th, 2009
Works fine with my ISP (1&1), who I believe are Europe’s largest provider (prod_293.html bit at the end):
http://www.economic-comics.co.uk/comic-shop/trading-cards/gogo-39-s/gogo-crazy-bones-power-series-4-starter-pack/prod_293.html
Stefan says
12:03 pm on 06/11/2009
I tried it, it is so easy:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sheer-Shirts-Transparent-Clothes/321093690116?v=app_135607783795
Hereford United Fan says
12:16 pm on November 6th, 2009
Have you sold anything yet?
Cheers
Stefan says
1:54 pm on 06/11/2009
no, it is like 2 days online and there are still a few items there.
Also it has to be made public by paying for ads on facebook like google adwords.
I linked the fan site, that comes with the storefront, to my shopify store.
Time will show but it is always a question of how much time you will spent in it.
Hereford United Fan says
2:07 pm on 06/11/2009
Hi
Can you explain how much it costs. I thought it would be a good idea to drive traffic there from ebay and then offer a slightly cheaper price.
Chris Dawson says
2:59 pm on November 6th, 2009
IT’S FREE
Honestly it’s Free! Free! Free!
Lino says
4:37 pm on November 6th, 2009
Probably not for long. Didn’t eBay used to be free?
John says
4:44 pm on November 6th, 2009
I personally am surprised that Facebook are not charging from the start. I am sure once they build up a credible community of sellers they will start to extract money from us?!
I don’t mind paying, if they bring the buyers…just like I dont mind paying ebay, as the buyers are there. What pisses me off is sites like eBid who have little buyer activity, but they use a strategy of charging £50 for lifetime membership and give you a crappy t-shirt …to me this is £50 for a t-shirt and the hope of selling one item in 5 years!
John says
4:40 pm on November 6th, 2009
I think you mentioned it was free on many posts!! I wish people would read posts!!
When you say free – do you mean £0 lol
Gill says
5:33 pm on 06/11/2009
I’ve just installed it on my business Facebook page too and it is indeed easy peasy – it looks as if it will be easy to add products too
I think I am going to hold off on actually adding any products though until I can price them in £ rather than $ – hopefully not too far away as they say in their FAQ that “We will be rolling out support for other currencies very soon”