Related Articles
In today’s fast-paced modern world, there’s no time for nonsense like putting your hand in your pocket and pulling out your money — but with PayPal you can pay at the till with just a smile at the cashier as you breeze out of the shop, goods in hand and wallet safely ensconced in your pocket.
With the PayPal Check-in app, you can pay for stuff without taking your money, credit card or even your phone out of your pocket. Thanks to a partnership with high-tech point-of-sale company ERPLY, you simply check in to a shop using the app as you arrive, then payment is taken automatically when you leave. And now Pocket-Lint reports that the clever service is coming to the UK.
Once you’ve checked in using your phone, you wander round and do your shopping as normal. Then, when you go to the till, the shop’s till system has registered you’re on the premises and shows the assistant your photo. They check it’s you, OK the purchase, and payment is magically made via PayPal as you trip lightly off into the sunshine with your new purchase.
The stumbling block is that you have to find a shop that accepts PayPal, so it’ll be a while before it’s widely adopted. But the payment feature is already built into the Android app, so fingers crossed your local small businesses and independent shop will get involved with PayPal Here, PayPal’s chip-and-PIN technology.
The fact your phone stays in your pocket at the till takes this one step further from contactless NFC payment, which lets you pay by tapping your phone on a till like a contactless credit card.
Looking ahead, PayPal also promises something called PayPal Order Ahead. Go online and place an order, and when you pop in the shop your order is ready and waiting and fully paid for, so you simply snatch it from the assistant’s grasp and run off into the night.
Is PayPal the future of real-world shopping? Pay your thoughts into the comments or leave an unexpected item in the bagging area on our Facebook page.
