PayPal Launches New Platform to Virtually Shop New York

PayPal recently hit on one truly impressive idea, the notion of a live, interactive shopping experience that allowed users to shop the Melrose Trading Post, a Los Angeles flea market, from pretty much anywhere with an internet connection. That was exciting enough, but PayPal’s new plan for just ahead of Christmas was even better. On Sunday, December 3, PayPal launched the Local Selects Holiday Edition, which would this time take shoppers to New York itself.

It featured not only a day at the Renegade Craft Fair in New York—which showed off up-and-coming artisans and new craft goods—but also, those who joined in on the livestream could actively purchase goods with a few simple points of contact in the interface.

Even this isn’t the first new initiative PayPal’s taken on lately; recently it connected to Acorns, an investment operation that allows users to shift cash from PayPal to an investment account. Given that 2.3 million people in the United States are already putting Acorns to use, it’s a good idea.

PayPal has had no shortage of good ideas lately; Local Selects Holiday Edition is a great idea by itself, and the kind of thing that could really catch on. There are flea markets and craft fairs all over the world that could use a little extra attention, and something like this could be the big thing that lets those events draw that extra attention. If PayPal were to start offering something like this every week or so, PayPal could pull in a whole lot of new business processing these payments that were formerly cash-only. That’s only just the start; what if PayPal offered the tools to let all those other markets run their own livestreams complete with buy here buttons? That’s a lot of new potential business in PayPal’s hands.

Regardless, there’s one key take-away here: PayPal is showing us the real value of diversification. It’s branching out from just payments, and giving us more opportunities to put that payment technology to work in ways we may not have previously expected. The true winner here, though, is PayPal, who will be processing all those payments and making money accordingly.