Home Depot PayPal Payment Pilot Set For Chainwide Rollout

After an apparently massive success with its trial of accepting PayPal payments at the point of sale, Home Depot has decided to bring the revoutionary POS technology to nearly all of its 2,000 stores in the US. It's the first time in recent memory that a major retail chain has allowed a way to pay at the register that doesn't actually require customers to have a physical product (whether it's a credit card, a mobile phone, or a dollar bill).

The process works like this – customers first need to activate their PayPal account online to allow for in-store purchases. This requires linking the account to a specific phone number. Once that's done, they receive a special PIN. At any time after that, they can walk into Home Depot and key in their phone number and PIN, and their purchase is automatically deducted from their PayPal account.

Those who prefer a piece of plastic also receive a special "payment card" that only works at authorized retailers. PayPal has the platform set up to be a new payment standard and does not mention Home Depot in its literature, but right now that is the only major partner in the program. In a recent earnings call, the head of PayPal's parent company Ebay said, "We are a different eBay today, no longer just an e-commerce leader but a stronger, more diverse global commerce company shaping the future of shopping and payments."

[via VentureBeat]