Australians Help PayPal Gain Momentum

April the 22nd marked PayPal's fifth anniversary in Australia, thanks to 3 million Australian users and 30,000 Australian businesses using PayPal as a secure way to send & receive money online.

PayPal is growing in the online shopping market, with the number of customer registrations growing more than 25% in the last calendar year. PayPal shoppers and businesses pushed through almost US$2 billion, which is an increase of 32 per cent from 2008, demonstrating rapid growth as PayPal consumers seek fast, safe and secure ways to shop online. PayPal enables online payment for both large and small Australian businesses, including JB Hi-Fi, Roses Only, Dick Smith Electronics, Hoyts, Borders, Flight Centre, DealsDirect, Optus and Telstra.

Frerk-Malte Feller, Managing Director, PayPal Australia said, "After five years of growth in Australia, momentum is building rapidly in the eCommerce space and more than half of Australia's top 100 retailers are now using PayPal. Australian retailers are recognising the threat from overseas retailers trying to cash in on the Australian retail market both on and off-line and we are seeing a response to this."

PayPal has also enjoyed a growth in cross border sales. The recent rise in the Australian dollar has brought about a year on year increase of 32 per cent in cross border payments as Australians seek bargains and choice from overseas, and take advantage of the strong dollar.

Conversely, PayPal opens the door to Australian businesses seeking opportunities to sell products or services to overseas markets. With more than 81 million active accounts in 190 markets and 24 currencies, PayPal enables global eCommerce. Many Australian businesses from fashion boutiques to travel sites are attracting new audiences and expanding revenue streams by selling their wares abroad.

Jonathan Reid, Director, MyCatwalk.com, an online Aussie fashion boutique and PayPal merchant commented,"Building revenue from overseas is critical to our business and PayPal has definitely helped us to grow our business abroad. It has proved an incredibly popular payment method in the USA, UK and Europe, and more recently Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore."

Over the past five years, several factors have been responsible for the slower uptake of e-tail amongst Australian consumers. While the cost of shipping, long delivery times and uncertainty around returns policies have prevented some consumers from shopping online, concerns around the security of transactions remains the number one concern to consumers shopping online today* (*Nielsen Online Consumer Report 2H09).

James Stevens, CEO and Founder, Roses Only, one of PayPal's first merchant partners in Australia, commented, "We integrated PayPal the minute it was available in Australia. Delivering a gifting service, it is critical that our customers feel confident that their payment is secure. Many customers are concerned about providing credit card details. PayPal addressed this issue instantly by enabling our customers to shop in comfort without sharing their details online."

According to Malte, while PayPal has seen growth in leaps and bounds in the last five years, he expects the future to be even more exciting, "We have come an incredible way in the last five years, yet I predict we will surpass these developments in the next two years. We are passionate about continuing to find new and innovative ways to securely connect buyers and sellers worldwide by providing solutions that fit into consumers' lifestyles, be it online, through social networks or mobile devices,"he said.

Both James and I use Paypal often, I almost exclusively use it for Ebay. We also both use the service sometimes at DealsDirect and OO, who have regular PayPal only special offers.

I'm not a big buyer of international orders, but with the AU dollars increasing in strength, I've noticed a few neighbours and even my Dad starting to buy products from international stores. And thanks to PayPal, these relatives and neighbours are more confident buying from small international online stores, not just the big online stores like Amazon UK.

If you don't have a PayPal account, head over to PayPal and setup an account. Once it's setup, buying products from an online store becomes a very easy and secure process, without the continual entering of credit card details.