Online-payment service provider PayPal Inc. plans to deploy a new and different approach to target consumers, merchants and developers in its quest to expand in Japan, the payments unit of online auction site eBay Inc. announced in late July.
EBay largely supports PayPal’s activity in the U.S., but PayPal will develop its own customer base in Japan, where consumers rely heavily on credit cards for online shopping. EBay had pulled out of Japan in 2002, conceding the auction market to Yahoo Japan, which operates independently of its U.S. namesake. In 2007, the two companies struck a deal in which Japanese consumers could access eBay items through Yahoo’s shopping site.
But even without eBay, PayPal is confident it will succeed with its growth plans in Japan, says Andrew Pipolo, head of PayPal Japan.
“We are very excited about our growth opportunities in the Japanese market,” he tells PaymentsSource, citing not only international trading but also “Japanese merchants and consumers selling and buying within Japan.”
The Tokyo-based Nomura Research Institute projects the Japanese e-commerce market to grow from 6.7 trillion yen (US$77.2 billion) in 2009 to 12.2 trillion yen in 2014
Because Japanese consumers often use mobile commerce, PayPal will launch Mobile Express Checkout for Japanese merchants in the near future, Pipolo says, noting personal computer-based e-commerce historically has been the company’s focus.
PayPal entered Japan in 2008 and has more than 1 million accounts in that country used primarily to support for purchases from overseas merchants.
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