Paypal Marketing Mix: 7P’s 

Company NamePaypal Holdings Inc.
Industry Served Digital Payments
Markets servedGlobal (200 countries)
HeadquartersSanJose, California, United States.
FoundedFounded in 1998. July 2015 (incorporated in Delaware.)
FoundersKen Howery, Luke Nosek, Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, Yu Pan, Russel Simmons, Elon Musk.
CEODan Schulman
Net Revenue (2018)$15.45 billion
Net Income (2018)$2.06 billion
Employees (2018)21,800
Number of Active members (2018)267 million 
Leading CompetitorsOnline payment services including debit and credit cards and other digital payment options like Payoneer, Google Pay, etc.
PayPal Logo
PayPal Logo

Marketing Mix of Paypal Holdings, Inc: 7P’s

Paypal Inc is a well-known provider of digital payment services on a global scale. Incorporated in 2015 in Delaware, Paypal became an independent company in July 2015 after its separation from eBay. During these years, apart from payment security, the company has focused on growing its user base around the world through marketing expansion of its services. In 2018, the number of active PayPal users grew 17% compared to the previous year, rising to 267 million. The company also enjoyed heavy growth in the number of transactions carried out with the help of Paypal as well as the total payment volume (27% each) compared to the previous year. 

Paypal has enabled several great features for both merchants and individual consumers to send and receive money. Paypal customers can send payments across more than 200 countries and in more than 100 currencies. Moreover, they can withdraw funds to their bank accounts in  56 currencies as well as hold balances in their accounts in 25 currencies. In this way, Paypal enables convenient payment options for customers worldwide with high security.

Target Market of Paypal:

The primary target market of Paypal includes both professionals and merchants that offer services and receive payments online. A large group of professionals, including freelancers from around the world, uses the services of Paypal to send and receive payments from overseas. Many businesses find it easier to pay locally through bank transfer, but for overseas payments, their most convenient option is Paypal. Businesses both send and accept payments using Paypal. The digital payments services provider mainly targets small and medium-sized companies that need to receive payments online. Apart from professionals and businesses that avail of Paypal’s services, there is a large group of tech savvy-, college-going users that use Paypal for making payments online for an extensive range of products and services.

Venmo, which is also owned by Paypal, targets the millennial users mainly. It is the favorite digital wallet of the millennial users in the United States, who like to send and receive money from their friends and family using Venmo.

Product:

The core product of Paypal is a digital payment solution. Paypal utilizes a simple but efficient digital platform to enable billions of payment transactions each year around the world. Its services operate on a two-sided network where both the merchant and the customer need to have Paypal accounts. These accounts have stored balance functionality. The Payments Platform of Paypal offers its customers the flexibility to use their PayPal accounts for completing purchases, receiving payments as well as to transfer and withdraw funds. Apart from a linked bank account or credit and debit cards, customers can use their Paypal balance or stored value products like coupons and gift cards to make purchases online. Other Paypal products like Venmo and Xoom allow the PayPal account holders to safely transfer funds to their family and friends. 

Place:

Paypal has its headquarters in SanJose, California, United States. However, the company serves the global market. Consumers across the world in 200 countries can send and receive payments using Paypal. It is a digital payment platform and you can use it with just a bank account and a Paypal account from any internet-enabled device. The company has also opened several offices locally in key markets around the world including Brazil, Canada, India, China, Singapore, and other markets.

Price:

Paypal faces heavy competition from several payment channels including bank transfer, credit cards, debit cards, and other payment gateways. It has utilized a competitive pricing strategy and charges small fees for transactions that can vary from market to market-based upon local laws. 

While not all transactions are charged by Paypal, there are some charges related to sending and receiving payments through Paypal, and apart from a small percentage of the amount being sent or received there are small fixed fees as well. Paypal also charges for currency conversion.

For example, if a seller is based in India, he will be charged 4.4% of the amount and some fixed fees for receiving up to $3,000 from international customers. For receiving amounts higher than $100K, he will be charged 3.4% and the fixed currency conversion fee based upon the currency.

Promotion:

Paypal mainly uses digital channels for promotions. However, it has now established itself worldwide as a well-known payment platform. The heavy growth in its user base is a result of its focus on customer convenience and marketing. Paypal markets itself as a merchant and consumer-friendly payment services provider. It has used a wide range of customer education initiatives to grow brand awareness. Its own website and app, as well as social media platforms, are the main channels of promotion for Paypal. However, the growth of the platform has accelerated with the growing use of mobile devices globally. 

People:

As of 2018, the company employs 21,800 people of which 11,500 were employed in the United States. Its President and CEO is Dan Schulman. The number of active Paypal members in 2018 reached 267 million, having risen by 17% compared to the previous year.

Process:

Paypal has focused upon process efficiency to grow customer trust and provide a high level of security and convenience when its customers carry out transactions online. Apart from the website, users can access PayPal through the app. The payment channel is also integrated into thousands of merchant websites that use it as a payment method. Apart from user convenience, the focus of Payal is on payment security and providing a secure channel of online transactions to millions of users worldwide. The company is continuously investing in its technological infrastructure and payments platform to provide superior customer experience and for increased efficiency, scalability, and security. The payment platform of PayPal has multiple layers of security for continuity and system redundancy purposes and to address cybersecurity challenges. The company regularly conducts tests of the system to identify any vulnerabilities which could potentially hurt data security.

Physical Evidence:

It’s an era of digital transactions and every day millions of customers worldwide use Paypal for online payments and withdrawals. Consumer trust is the key factor driving the popularity of the brand. Since the entire business of Paypal is carried out online, the only evidence related to its services is the app and website and the payment receipts provided online. However, the other physical evidence of Paypal includes its physical infrastructure.

CITE THIS.
APAPratap, A. (2020). Paypal Marketing Mix: 7P’s aim-blog. Retrieved 23 February 2020, from https://notesmatic.com/paypal-marketing-mix-7ps/
MLAPratap, Abhijeet. “Paypal Marketing Mix: 7P’S Cheshnotes”. Cheshnotes, 2020, https://notesmatic.com/paypal-marketing-mix-7ps/. Accessed 23 Feb 2020.