Paypal Shows the Value of a Platform
The beauty of a platform is that once you have it, you can deploy more products and services to your built in audience. That is exactly what Paypal has done and has the ability to do in the future as well. The core of Paypal is facilitating payments. You, the user, sign up with Paypal to send and receive money.
Now, sending money over the internet is a simple need and many people do it. That creates an opportunity. The founders of Paypal knew that there was something there, built out the platform, grew it and went public with the company. Shortly after, Paypal was purchased by eBay before being spun out.
It worked out well for Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Max Levchin, and other people involved in Paypal.
The company has done well, has gained more users over the past two decades and has rolled out a wide variety of services.
We Can Do It Too
The firm opened up its platform to enable more developers to use its code to create further value in peer to peer transactions.
Paypal has immense value because it does not have to spend additional dollars on excessive marketing when rolling out new products and services. It can merely implement the service on its platform and let people use the product. Their various poular products are present below.
– Paypal Credit
– Venmo
– Paypal Here
-Paypal provides an updated app that lets users order ahead, pay with paypal credit, and more at participating businesses
– Paypal enabled cryptocurrency purchases on its platform. Individuals can purchase a few of the most prominent coins on its platform as of 2021. Individuals can also use cryptocurrencies to pay for goods and services at merchants participating on the Paypal platform.
The firm has not shown you anything new or extremely innovative. It has went and provided you a variety of services that already exist from other innovators. It has seen what people like Square, Coinbase, Robinhood, and other financial oriented entities have done and said, yes, we can do it too.
Paypal has showed many people that it can do it too and it could execute quite well. The latter part is the most important part. Just because you can do something does not mean that you should do something. If you are not capable of executing correctly as a large company, maybe you should hold off.
That strategy has provided enough value for the firm and has helped it to increase its shareholder value over time.
Growth and Value Still Present for Paypal
But what matters for Paypal is growth and value. The firm is doing a fantastic job at attracting people to its platform, retaining them, and helping them to do more with their money. Paypal has to continue to add the necessary services to keep more people on the platform. It must compete with a slew of competitors that compete in a comprehensive way or in specific verticals.
From key competitors like Square to others like Skrill, Payoneer, Stripe, and others, we see that it must keep a constant eye on what is going on in the financial space and replicate those innovations feasibly.
At the present moment, Paypal has over 300 million active users, is available in over 200 countries, and allows individuals to send funds in over 15 countries around the globe.
But there is more growth ahead for Paypal as e-commerce continues to grow around the world. While it seems like everything is done online, many sales still take place offline. Paypal is poised to continue to capture a piece of many sales as they continue their payment efforts.