PayPal Micropayments To Help Small Internet Businesses
Micropayments, small online transactions of less than $12, provide a business model for charitable organizations, media outlets and artists still reeling from the economic transformation wrought by the Internet. PayPal has now added a function that enables those transactions, letting users to support small endeavors by paying only cents per visit.
The new solution offers PayPal’s competitive fee structure for micropayments, with pricing at 5 percent plus 5 cents for purchases under $12 -- lower than the fees typically charged by payment processors in the digital goods industry. Every time a customer purchases content, publishers and merchants get paid quickly, giving them fast access to their funds. PayPal for digital goods will be available late fall this year.
For online comics, micropayments could keep strips alive, with viewers paying per visit like kids dropping pennies into a nickelodeon. Similarly, charities could make money online by digitizing the change collections tins found beside cash registers. And news outlets could augment advertising by selling stories at 50 cents a pop.
At PayPal’s second annual Innovate developer conference, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg announced that Facebook will integrate PayPal’s new digital goods payment flow to make PayPal the way to make purchases on Facebook.
Several additional companies, including Autosport.com, FT.com, GigaOM, Justin.tv, Ooyala, Plimus, Tagged, Tyler Projects and Ustream announced that they are also using PayPal to monetize the growing opportunity in digital goods .
