eBay To Announce Something Big With Facebook In Two Weeks
Last year, PayPal announced its new micropayments product, which Facebook integrated. In early 2010, Facebook announced that you could use PayPal to purchase Credits.
So what could the new deal or integration be? A likely possibility is a Facebook partnership on the new X.Commerce platform, which is a division of eBay, Inc. and is expected to bring together elements from eBay, PayPal, Magento and GSI Commerce. According to PayPal, X.commerce will feature a “fabric” that stitches the platform together to create new experiences for retailers and their customers. A number of partners will be announced (already Adobe and Kenshoo have been revealed as partners), so Facebook could be part of this group.
eBay and PayPal wouldn’t reveal exact details of the integration but did give us this comment from Naveed Anwar, head of X.commerce Community: “We’ve been talking for a while about how the four megatrends of mobile, social, local and digital will change commerce. Yesterday at f8, Facebook made some great announcements that will change social networking. When social and commerce join together great things will be possible and developers will be able to monetize these new developments very quickly.”
PayPal could also announce a deal similar to the one American Express formed with Facebook, which links your credit card account with Facebook to offer users special exclusive deals. If you buy the deal item with your AmEx card, you will be credited the deal amount. The deals you see are influenced by what you and your friends “like” on the Web using the Facebook like button. PayPal already offers deals but a deeper integration with the social network would help close the redemption loop.
With more retailers flocking to Facebook, and as more money is passing through the network via games, apps and others experiences, there is a huge potential for many integrations with online payments giant PayPal. Another announcement we can expect PayPal to make soon—a new payments platform for merchants and in-store payments integrations with retailers.
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