PayPal Set To Unveil Payments Platform For Small Businesses

In addition to partnering with large retailers, it looks like PayPal is going to be launching a set of payments offerings for small businesses as well. We just received an invitation for an event PayPal is hosting next week, which will unveil what the payments company has in store for a solution for small businesses.

We’ve heard that similar to PayPal’s recently introduced in-store payments technology for big box retailers, the company is going to be launching an in-store payments system focused on smaller merchants. It’s unclear what this technology will look like, but we’ll find out more next Thursday.

It’s not surprising that PayPal is going after small businesses with an in-store solution. There’s a huge market in providing a payments platform for merchants, as evidenced by the growth and success of Square.

It should be interesting to see how similar PayPal’s small business solution is to its in-store platform designed for Home Depot, which is being rolled out nationally. With the Home Depot system, PayPal users are able to pay for items via their PayPal account at Home Depot’s point of sale systems. They can either use a PIN code via their mobile phone or a specialized PayPal credit card that can be swiped, the payment amount will be deducted from their PayPal account.

PayPal previously tried a test of using the online payments platform at small businesses back in 2009. The company launched a new version of its popular iPhone app that allowed users to find businesses near their immediate location that accept PayPal as a form of payment. The feature rolled out in San Francisco initially, but the initiative never really took off.

We’ll keep you updated on what PayPal has up its sleeve next week.