Log in with PayPal: A new way to take the headache out of mobile shopping

In its ongoing effort to become a universal payment service, PayPal is today launching a new service that should simplify shopping on mobile websites.

Dubbed “Log in with PayPal,” the service lets you easily sign in with your PayPal credentials to avoid the pain of filling out shipping and payment information on your mobile screen. (It was previously known as PayPal Access during its beta testing phase.) For merchants, Log in with PayPal also serves as a way to verify a buyer’s identity.

The service is “all about building trust between buyers and sellers,” said Damon Houglands, senior director of identity at PayPal, in an interview with VentureBeat.

Log in with PayPal could also help merchants complete more sales through mobile. According to Houglands, nearly half of users end up leaving shopping sites if they can’t remember their account passwords and a quarter abandon their carts because they’re frustrated with entering shopping information on a tiny screen.

It should also be easy for developers to implement, since it relies on the same open web technologies like OAuth and JSON, as well as the REST technology used in PayPal’s new APIs.

PayPal’s eventual goal is to let you make mobile purchases simply by entering your 4-digit PayPal PIN number on a website, Houglands tells me. For now, you still have to actually log into a mobile site with your PayPal credentials, which could be either your PayPal login or your mobile number and PIN. Either way, it’s still better than pecking in your credit card information by hand.

While Log in with PayPal is only a mobile web solution now, developers can still implement it within their native iOS apps. When I asked if PayPal was considering a way to offer the service across native apps completely (something that would be particularly useful on iOS), Houglands hinted that PayPal is considering that functionality.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat