In an effort to compete with Amazon’s Flexible Payments API, PayPal recently announced its version of the API, called Adaptive Payments (which we scooped over the summer). PayPal’s API gives developers full access to PayPal’s features, allowing them a lot more freedom in building applications, which includes the ability to accept and distribute payments. Over the course of the past few month, PayPal has been working with several startups as part of a pilot program to show the capabilities of the API in anticipation of a broader rollout in November. Payvment, which powers online shopping cart technologies and uses PayPal as a payment mechanism, is launching a potentially revolutionary new Facebook app that would let anyone set up a retail storefront on Facebook.
Payvment was originally developed as a web service that would allow any site owner to integrate a shopping cart into their e-commerce offering. You can add the technology to your site by simply adding one line of code to the site. Payvment’s Facebook App is more comprehensive and lets anyone create a retail store on Facebook. The app lets you set up products, categories of products (i.e. shoes, T-shirts, sweaters), import photos, list terms of service and shipping options and more. Once you set up your online shop on Facebook, it will show up in a separate tab on your profile or page under “storefront”.
Once the shop is set up, potential buyers can interact with the storefront like they would a -commerce site. You can add desired products to your cart and remove them easily. Payvment also lets buyers conduct searches within the store. When a user adds a product to their shopping cart on Facebook and clicks to follow-through on buying the product, Payvment takes the user to a separate page outside of Facebook, where the user can use PayPal to buy the object. Payvment’s CEO and founder, Christian Taylor, tells me that it is necessary to conduct the transaction on a separate site because Facebook doesn’t yet offer e-commerce security options. And any purchases made will not be made pubic to your friends.
Payvment’s shopping cart is also integrated with any other shop using its application. So if you put a shirt from store “x” in your cart and also placed a shirt from store “y” in the cart, both would show up on either retail site. Basically, Payvment creates a unified shopping cart across Facebook for buyers. Retailers with standalone sites who want to use Payvment’s shopping cart experience can also implement Facebook Connect, to let consumers access their personal shopping cart from Facebook. And retailers can customize their carts within their sites to fit into their UI.
Of course, there are ways to sell virtual goods on Facebook, including Facebook’s own payment system, and a few storefronts have already been popping up on Facebook, including apps for 1-800-Flowers and Sears. With these retailers, transactions are completed outside of Facebook, on the retailers page. Payvment adds to this functionality to by letting anyone set up a retail storefront for free. Taylor adds that this app will eventually be made available on other social networks. One of the draws of Payvment is that its code and Facebook app are free for the moment. So retailers don’t have to put any money up to set up their shopping cart and storefront.
Payvment, which will be launched to the public on Nov. 3 and PayPal’s Innovate Conference, seems like a innovative way to integrate social e-commerce on Facebook. It seems like a no-brainer for smaller retailers which don’t have well-established sites to create a revenue stream through Facebook. In fact, even larger retailers who have established e-commerce sites can feature and sell a select group of products within Facebook. And retailers, both big and small, are flocking to Facebook for marketing purposes, why not add the ability to buy as well? Personally, I’d love to see a virtual mall on Facebook with multitudes of retailers.
PayPal is smart to engage developers in the early stages of releasing this new API. The company also partnered with TechCrunch50 demopit startups FundRazr and Lottay to build off the adaptive payments API. In fact, PayPal’sPayPal X Innovate 2009 conference in November is designed to attract more developers to the platform. The new APIs will only be released to those developers that attend the conference. Although, we scooped the news of the new Adapative Payments API, PayPal says that additional APIs will be announced at the conference. It should be interesting to see what these APIs enable developers to build, considering the impressive vision PayPal has for the future.
“any purchases made will not be made pubic to your friends”
I hope none of my facebook friends make anything “pubic” to me.
Creepy and Cool. Facebook is changing the course of human interaction and now commerce.
Dwam! I have been waiting for something like this.
One interesting question: what will this mean for eBay?
i was thinking that too… if this, or something similar, takes off, then it has the potential to really eat into ebays territory. It seems like Facebook is really getting into a lot of areas that others (like ebay) seemed to have totally sewn-up
Payvment is using the PayPal API. Friends, this means PayPal/eBay is making money on Facebook. As long as they remain with PayPal, eBay won’t have to worry about anyone ‘eating into eBay’s territory’.
Actually it does cut in some. If an item is sold by auction on eBay and use PayPal to pay, eBay is making profit on both the seller’s fees on eBay and the PayPal fee. An item bought on Facebook that uses PayPal to pay, only gives eBay profits on the PayPal fee.
This could be interesting for some of us. It feels like the whole portable digital music push of 5 years ago alla SNOCAP etc etc.
Problem is, consumers are generally not looking to shop on these sites and when they are in the mood, their first thought is not to hit-up their social network to do it.
Maybe consumer goods ex music will be different…
“And any purchases made will not be made pubic to your friends.”
“Public”!
Everyone take a shot of tequila for one of the top five typos of all time!
StuffBuff is launching first week of November with unique auctions and will also feature PayPal’s adaptive payments API.
Beta code?
Very cool. Wish there was more information about how they’re going to do fulfillment integration. Also I’m curious to how the program manages tons of SKUs (just say no to manual data entry) and if it can handle real time inventory integration with an existing e-commerce site like Amazon does.
This is going to be huge. The main reason as that all commerce sites rely on trust and with the good brand that Facebook has built consumers will know that they can shop securely. On top of that you have the social features which have endless possibilities
If only the paypal system actually accepted credit cards, as opposed to requiring checkout and payment via Paypal only.
Alvenda.com powers the 1800 Flowers website on Facebook I believe.
OMFG!
Facebook is the internet!
This is thoroughly exciting. As a small e-commerce store, we have trouble getting our name out when opposed by Amazon, Newegg, TigerDirect, etc. This makes me feel like an entirely new market has emerged, and that small businesses, at least during the opening stages, will have a good chance to make some headway with type of service.
Also, then I go on Facebook all day and say I’m working. Best of both worlds!
More the reason for small businesses to flock to Facebook.
Wow, that’s a great progress for PayPal to dominate the payment processing marketing, especially when working with Facebook, it could be a new revolution on internet
Great
Didn’t you guys already run this story?
http://www.tech...nside-facebook/
And their store doesn’t redirect you off of Facebook for checkout like the stores you mention above.
E
Have you checked out Netcarnation Marketplace ?
http://www.face...?id=81477261261
why dont they just create their own checkout like google.
Yahoo Shopping ca. 1999?