• FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

    PayPal mobile payments pilot at 51 Home Depot stores

    No wallet… No phone… No problem!

    John Donahoe paying with PayPal at Home Depot

    eBay Inc. CEO, John Donahoe, talked about the new PayPal mobile payment tests being run at 51 Home Depot stores starting this week during eBay’s quarterly earnings call this afternoon. He went one better too. He actually visited a store this morning to try out the technology first-hand.

    eBay CEO, John Donahoe, Visits Home Depot to pay with PayPal

    Leaving his wallet and his mobile phone in his car, he tried the first-hand integration this morning at a San Jose Home Depot. By entering his mobile phone number and PIN, he was able to pay for a hammer in a matter of seconds. The receipt was emailed to him.

    Home Depot Terminal with PayPal

    The system works in two ways:
    1. Using an in-store terminal, shoppers can buy items by punching in a phone number and PIN linked to their PayPal account
    2. Pay using a plastic card issued by PayPal that works like a credit card


    Here’s an example of a text receipt sent to a mobile phone after purchase:

    PayPal Home Depot receipt

    I think I may head over to Home Depot on Friday to try this out for myself.

    Cheers!
    RBH