PayPal will add its full range of payment options to a checkout approach developed by the Canadian fintech Bold Commerce that enables consumers to make instant purchases within any digital or traditional media, the companies announced Wednesday.
Participating merchants may place a PayPal-powered Bold Commerce instant checkout point within any kind of media ranging from social media to blogs or QR codes on signs and packaging, enabling consumers to complete purchases in one step, the companies said.
The move expands the channels where merchants can sell goods and reduces steps necessary to complete a purchase, as the race to reduce friction at the checkout escalates.
Bold Commerce will offer merchants PayPal's full payment suite including Venmo, PayPal Pay Later and credit and debit cards within the Canadian firm's so-called headless commerce technology, which untethers the consumer checkout experience from a participating merchant's underlying host website, said David Bruce, vice president and global head of channel partnerships at PayPal.
"A headless checkout experience means that you can take the checkout component and put it anywhere you want, with a level of customization and choice that really hasn't been there before with online checkout," Bruce said.
Bold Commerce, established a decade ago, designed its headless commerce technology so it can be adopted by digital-first merchants as well as merchants using decades-old e-commerce platforms, said Jay Myers, co-founder of Bold Commerce.
"Consumers shopping at a participating merchant could be at a retail location and scan a QR code on an item or a piece of furniture and it can open a checkout right there," Myers said.
After scanning the QR code, a consumer making a purchase using Bold Commerce's headless checkout approach would log into a merchant's website and use any of PayPal's supported payment options for one-click checkout, Myers said.
Bold Commerce's approach cuts out several steps compared with the typical process where a consumer scans a QR code with their mobile device and is next directed to a product page where they're prompted to add the item to a virtual cart and log in to the merchant's site or input payment details, Myers explained.
"Our technology allows brands to broadly customize the checkout experience and put it virtually anywhere, while still remaining tied into their existing e-commerce system," Myers said.
