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PayPal Organizational Overview & Brief History
PayPal Holdings Inc. is an American based online payment system, which is headquartered in San Jose – California and currently operating globally. Primary operations of PayPal are associated with online money transactions using electronic options, surpassing traditional methods such as money orders and checks that were less reliable and timely. PayPal is one of the most largest and renowned online money transferring corporations in the world. PayPal primarily functions as an acquirer i.e. performing all the relevant processing of the payment in support of online vendors and businesses. Since it operates as an acquirer, it generates revenues by processing payment for auction sites, online business, e-suppliers and other commercial users (Cheng, 2015). PayPal operates within the financial services industry. It was founded in 1998 and got its first IPO in 2002. Later in 2003, it became a wholly-owned subsidiary of eBay. It spun off in July 2015 to operate as an independently trading corporation. PayPal facilitates payment and money transfers for small and medium individual, as well as, business accounts (Wall Street Journal, 2016). PayPal is a recognized medium for payment processing and therefore, its functions and business operations are independent of its clients’ performance (PayPal, 2016).
Products & Services offered by PayPal
PayPal operates within the financial service industry and facilitates online payment transactions and transfers. Therefore, the primary products and services of PayPal are also very precise to the industry needs. It basically offers two types of products i.e. Payment Systems and Credit Cards. PayPal offers a variety of services and products that help an individual person or firm transfer its money instantly and safely to any location. PayPal Extras Master Card and PayPal Prepaid Master Card are the two credit cards, which primarily facilitate online vendors and business to make timely payments. Payment systems include PayPal Cash, Express Checkout, Email Payments, eBay Payments, Send Money etc. (Cheng, 2015). These services target different market segments in order to deliver precise and detailed services that exactly suits their business and individual payment needs (PayPal, 2016).
Key Facts & Figures
PayPal is currently operating in 190 countries, 26 currencies and in 203 markets with more than 173 million active users. By 2015, annual revenues for PayPal were US $ 9.24 billion with an operating income of US $ 1.46 billion and US $ 1.22 billion of profit. PayPal currently has 15, 800 employees. PayPal currently upholds 44% of eBay total annual profit (PayPal, 2016).
Market Strategy of PayPal
PayPal target two types of market segments. Firstly it targets individuals and secondly business entrepreneurs. PayPal is now increasingly focusing on distinctively targeting different market segments. Below mentioned are the PayPal marketing approach for business clientele and for individuals. Super Bowl promotes the modern use of technology, which facilitates instant and safe transfers (Cheng, 2015). PayPal is increasingly focused on its digital marketing strategy that is comprised of advertising PayPal by means of TV commercials, billboards and through mobile and digital push which involve social media campaigning and SMS services. The current marketing strategy of PayPal is focused on influencing the mass audience to get engaged with new and faster money transfer methods (Wall Street Journal, 2016).
PayPal Marketing Strategy for Commercial Audience
The brand aimed to launch the new logo to bring it to mobile devices and other retail points of sales. To add a flavor of uniqueness, the brand has also used various techniques such as celebrity and singer endorsement, a whole new title song for the advertisement that also demonstrates user experiences and payment safety. PayPal has also made its Mobile First that will be soon facilitating customers to make their purchases instantly and directly from their smart phones by using their PayPal account from anywhere. This tends to bring enlarged customer engagement as individual will be empowered to make their money transfers with greater ease and convenience. PayPal has also announced innovative business partnerships with market leaders like Deutsche Telkom and Samsung and has now become the first ever payment company worldwide that enables fingerprint account authentication for money transfers and payments via Samsung Galaxy S5 and models onwards.
PayPal Marketing Strategy for Business Oriented Audience
The second segments PayPal targets is of business entrepreneurs and suppliers. Business users usually use PayPal from their business transactions. It is progressively encouraging entrepreneurs by advertising the perspective that they can expand their customer base by using PayPal as trusted method of payment transfer. For targeting business, PayPal has traditionally relied upon illustrating business people making a safe transaction in their advertisements. It has now increasingly focusing on making more engaging presentation for their merchandising clients to allure them that they can craft a larger customer base for their business by partnering with PayPal. PayPal has also developed better partnerships with banks and other institution to facilitate credit facilities for the small and medium merchant. PayPal has always been the first choice of merchant community; however, the brands is progressively more precise over adding a more engaging feature that enhances business productivity and efficiency. By promoting technological and digital option easier for making transactions through PayPal accounts; business entrepreneurs would also be eventually benefitted.
Work Cited
1to1 Media (2008) PayPal CMO Shares Marketing Strategy. Data Retrieved From http://www.1to1media.com/view.aspx?docid=31008 on February 15, 2016
Cheng, J. (2015). PayPal’s Flexible Payments Service to compete. Retrieved from http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/08/amazons-flexible-payments-service-to-compete-with-google-checkout-paypal.ars on February 15, 2016
Data Retrieved From http://diginomica.com/2014/05/01/new-look-paypal-spends-digital-marketing-fend-google-amazon/ on February 15, 2016
Diginomica (2014) New-look PayPal spends on digital marketing to fend off Google and Amazon.
Kotelnikov, V. (2014). Sustainable Competitive Advantage Retrieved From http://www.1000advices.com/guru/strategy_competition_sca_vk.html on February 15, 2016
McKinsey & Company (2016) PayPal’s vision for a global marketplace. Data Retrieved From http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/high-tech/our-insights/paypals-vision-for-a-global-marketplace on February 15, 2016
PayPal. Official Website. (2016). Retrieved From https://www.paypal-media.com/payments/vision on February 15, 2016
Silicon Valley Business Journal (2014) PayPal's chief product officer on how the company's new strategy required a new look. Data Retrieved From http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2014/04/30/paypals-chief-product-officer-on-its-new-logo-and.html on February 15, 2016
Wall Street Journal. Official Website. (2016). Retrieved From http://www.wsj.com/articles/paypal-embraces-new-money-in-super-bowl-ad-debut-1454590801 on February 15, 2016
