PayPal Expands Its QR Payment App to Small Businesses Via Vistaprint

Vistaprint, a provider of physical and digital marketing materials to small businesses, announced Wednesday an agreement with PayPal Holdings Inc. to enable small businesses to accept payments through Quick Response codes.

To order Vistaprint marketing materials with a QR code, small businesses log on to Vistaprint’s Web site and choose a product on which they want the QR code printed, such as tabletop signage, stickers, decals, and banners. Next, the business owner selects a product template or creates a customized design featuring their logo. A QR code is then auto-generated and printed on the marketing materials. Once printed, businesses can display the materials, which consumers can scan with a smart phone to activate PayPal’s contactless-payment app.  

Vistaprint plans to roll out the service in select markets in North America and Europe throughout the year.

“This collaboration with PayPal is one way we are building solutions that help small businesses make the necessary pivots to not only keep their customers safe but also create new, streamlined avenues for success well beyond Covid-19,” Emily Whittaker, president of Vistaprint, North America, said in a prepared statement.

A recent Vistaprint survey of 500 small businesses in the retail and food-service sectors revealed that adding contactless payments ranks among top changes small businesses have made in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Indeed, 52% of respondents say they added contactless payments in 2020 as a direct response to the pandemic and plan to keep it in place long-term. In addition, 42% of small businesses say that of all the pandemic-driven changes they have made to the business, contactless payment is among the most important to their customers. 

For PayPal, the deal with Vistaprint builds on its push into QR code-based payment applications. Last November, PayPal began rolling out its QR code option to CVS pharmacy stores. PayPal has also launched a Visa-branded credit card for its Venmo peer-to-peer payment service that features a QR code for P2P transfers in addition to an NFC chip for merchant acceptance.

“Small businesses have been impacted in an unprecedented way during the Covid-19 pandemic and they have sought new, innovative, and, perhaps most important, touch-free ways to keep their physical doors open,” said Nitin Prahbu, vice president of consumer in-store at PayPal, in a statement. “PayPal has always been a small-business champion, and with our PayPal QR code technology, this is another way we are helping these businesses transact in a safer manner.”