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PayPal Holdings is planning to start rolling out its omnichannel strategy in Europe this quarter, beginning with Germany, as it seeks to persuade consumers to use its payment platform for a variety of offline purchases, as well as digital transactions.
PayPal introduced its “Everywhere” omnichannel strategy in the U.S. in September, offering cashback and other rewards to prompt retail spending at restaurants, grocery stores and gas stations, with plans to target Europe in 2025.
German consumers will see an NFC contactless payment option this quarter, followed by the omnichannel rollout in the U.K. in the third quarter, Chief Executive Officer Alex Chriss said Tuesday on a quarterly earnings conference call. The two countries are its largest European markets and they are the biggest outside the U.S.
In the U.K., PayPal also introduced payment app improvements for consumers last year that include biometric functionality to enable two-factor authentication, Chriss said. PayPal says the two countries are its largest European markets.
“We’ve really suffered in the last few years with what I would consider to be one of our poorest app experiences for consumers,” Chriss said of the U.K. market, adding that the former app “really was choppy and created a lot of friction and a lot of latency in the experience.”
Nodding to the impact of U.S. tariffs, PayPal declined to update its full-year forecast Tuesday despite a robust jump in first-quarter profits. Company executives expressed confidence about consumer spending in the current quarter, but warned that it’s unclear how consumers may behave later in 2025, given the uncertainties around President Donald Trump’s trade war.
PayPal, which is based in San Jose, California, has been battling tepid growth with its flagship payments service, prompting a revamped strategy last year under Chriss, a former Intuit executive who joined the company in September 2023.
PayPal executives also noted a surge in payment volume for April, which they attributed to many consumers shifting forward their purchases ahead of potential price hikes due to U.S. tariffs. That trend is likely to taper off in the current quarter, Chief Financial Officer Jamie Miller said.
“With a strong first quarter behind us and a good start to the second, we believe we are on pace to outperform our original expectations for the first half of 2025,” Miller said. “At the same time, given uncertainty in the environment and the potential for a wide range of outcomes, we are appropriately cautious.”
