Office Depot now testing PayPal’s new point-of-sale system

Office Depot, the second-largest retailer of office supplies in the U.S., is testing PayPal’s new point-of-sale system in a limited number of locations according to Reuters. “It’s at this point in a small number of stores … because there are still some rough spots in that experience,” said Kevin Peters, president of Office Depot’s North American unit. “There are some limitations on who can use it, service carriers that support that.” PayPal’s new payment method, known as the wallet in the cloud, lets shoppers who have PayPal accounts pay by typing their mobile numbers and PINs at checkout counters. Customers will also be able to pay by swiping a PayPal card and entering a PIN. PayPal started testing in-store payments at 51 Home Depot locations with plans to offer the service at 20 major retailers by the end of the year, however no additional participants have been named. Peters said the company is eager to experiment with anything that helps with faster checkouts, although nothing will be widely available without further testing. “At this point, we are walking very, very slowly. The last thing we want to do is to roll out technology that doesn’t appreciably change the customer experience,” he said.

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