Paypal Launches Storefront Widget
Duncan Riley
28 comments »
Paypal has launched the Paypal Storefront Widget, a web based widget that allows anyone to embed a store widget on a web site.
The Storefront widget offers a seamless e-commerce platform for those wishing to sell anything on their site, such as t-shirts, CD’s or other items
The widget (see pic right) includes:
- An Index page that shows thumbnail images of all the items for sale through the widget
- a product page that shows a larger view of the items/ products for sale
- A shopping cart directly within the widget
- About and policy pages mean that any conditions are also contained with the widget
Users can set the widget to “sold out” or “sorry we’re closed” from the central control panel, and comes standard with a sharing option; visitors are able to grab the html for the widget from the widget and display it on their own site should they so desire.
I spoke with Paypal prior to the launch and they emphasized that the product was focused on blogs and social networking sites. Paypal has a deal with SixApart that sees the widget being embeddable into TypePad blogs without the need to copy and paste, for everyone else though its no more difficult than any widget is to embed, presuming you know where to get at, and where to paste the html.
Initially there are some limitations with the service, for example you only get the choice of one size for the widget, and it currently only supports sales in US dollars. Paypal though will be seeking user feedback once the program takes off and they are open to expanding the options available in the future.
Paypal sees a lot of possibilities for the widget; for example it provides a seamless shopfront for bands on MySpace who may want to sell recordings. It may also be a substitute for donation buttons that are occasionally used by bloggers as well; Paypal admits that some of their previous embeddable shopping options haven’t been as user friendly as they’d hoped, where as the Storefront widget is focused on being simple to use for everyone.
I’ve had time to play with the setup features for the widget and there’s little doubt that Paypal got the easy part right. Drop down menu items for navigation compliment sample products to get users started.
There are some parallels to Tailgate, in that both are transaction on the page. The difference with the Paypal widget is that like any Paypal transaction payment is made on the Paypal website itself to guarantee a secure transaction; the widget is fully transactional only to the last purchase point. This is functionality usually delivered by often expensive merchant solutions where as Paypal is offering this service for free, except of course they get a standard cut from the sale itself.
I know when I first heard about Paypal’s Storefront Widget that my thoughts were: here we go, yet another widget offering, but this is impressive and quite unique in the marketplace. I’d think that this product will be warmly received by those with something to sell, or those who haven’t offered items for sale previously on their blogs or social networking pages due to the cost and technical knowledge required in doing so.
O RLY? First.
Is it the same aspect ratio as the iPhone?
Looks great. I can’t wait to use it to sell stuff!
How is this different from Obopay’s widget?
No one uses Obopay, that’s how it’s different
Sarah
tens of millions (possibly hundreds, I cant remember) of ppl with Paypal accounts + paypal is pretty much the default standard for online payments, that’s what’s different
Interesting and somewhat cool that its not doing the selling using eBay. In a way this thing competes with eBay’s widget that lets you embed an auction in your blog. Seems like a no brainer to go with the PayPal flavor if you think you blog can sell the item via native traffic.
Kudos to PayPal for taking the risk of allowing a blogger to choose and avoid the eBay fees.
100 M of PP users with less than 10 transactions per year on average are NOTHING close to approx 10 billion purchase transactions made every year with ordinary cards and processors. That’s how it is a ‘default standard’.
This is a great component that will have a wide adoption for the users that need a quick / no fluff solution. It doesn’t get an easier than this.
Roy
Magento (open source eCommerce)
Hi !
You mean right now it is only for USA users when does it come to the rest of the world i can not find it in my settings?
not interested unless it deals in euros… the percentage paypal takes is high, got to blance that out somehow… and just think of the future
paypal is NO first:
http://agentnano.com/
I’m surprised MySpace hasn’t already launched a payment service/marketplace for artists who want to sell music. This seems like a perfect match since every independent artist under the moon have samples of their music on MySpace. It’s becoming the defacto place to go when you want to hear a sample of an artist you’ve never heard before.
Great idea but from a SEO perspective, useless. Will keep using paypal as a gateway for my sites though… they are the best!
Jon
This is a ripoff of the MSN BuyMeGadget, nothing new here, except the we will sue!
“The difference with the Paypal widget is that like any Paypal transaction payment is made on the Paypal website itself to guarantee a secure transaction”
this is a deal killer for me. If the transaction could be seamless on my site, then i’d care.
WOW, this looks really cool
I think there would be good amount of standard cut from the sale paypal will take out for providing this additional feature.
SEO incompatible? Not totally. You can tailor your page a bit to create the effect.
However, I did just send them a suggestion about allowing an entry in the HTML code to suggest what the first item to display should be (thusly you could [programmatically] adjust this per page the widget is on making it more contextually relevant to the page). Hopefully they can implement it.
SB
I personally think this is a great idea. With the amount of blogs and online sites that use widgets now it could be quite useful. I am quite pleased with PayPal’s innovative way to re brand themselves.
I’d like to see it useful to those who sell digital downloads and services, not just shippable products.
Why is PayPal publishing this on a website called http://storefront.paypallabs.com/ ? This totally looks like a Phishing scheme (even if I assume that Michael double-checked their identity), especially as
- the Login button directs to an unsecure, non-paypal domain and
- the bottom navigation linl labeled PayPal labs goes to http://x.com/ (how did they get this great domain name, anyway?)
Not something which increases trust in online transactions, and not worthy for someone with PayPal’s visibility and impact on the marketplace.
This thing is not even half baked yet. There is no way to delete products from the store and you can’t delete the store entirely once you create one.
MagNet is coming -
Delete the store by removing the widget or creating a new store (and new HTML code).
Remove items by adjusting inventory down to zero. Although if you no longer sell the item!!? Send in a comment.