After receiving multiple emails about upgrading to the latest PayPal app on my S6 (which, as it happened to work out, I already had), I was intrigued about the possibilities of an increased usage of PayPal in my life. Since the partial demise of Google Wallet, many of you would know that I've been searching for the perfect replacement. I had also been intrigued when seeing "Pay with PayPal" buttons at checkout machines in stores - were you supposed to type in a username and password? I decided to find out.
I ventured off to our local Dollar General to pickup some comfort food and easy to digest things for our toddler who was battling yet another fever and figured this was as good a time as any. When opening the PayPal app on my phone, there's a button at the bottom that has "Pay" as a header, and then "In-Store" on the button. Grabbed my thirteen bucks worth of stuff, and headed to the checkout. While waiting briefly in line, I unlocked the app by using my thumbprint (a nice new feature of the app), hit the Pay In Store button, and didn't know what to expect.
The first screen that comes up is where you choose where you're shopping. It has to be mentioned that paying in-store with the app only works with participating vendors. On this screen I noticed -- there aren't very many participating vendors near me. The entire list was comprised of alternating Dollar General and Home Depot locations sorted by distance from my current position. Fortunately, I knew about this before I headed out on my shopping trip. Continuing on, I simply tapped the top Dollar General location in the list, and a gigantic four digit code displayed on my phone. And accompanying message of "Show this number to the cashier" was also displayed.
When it was my turn to pay, I promptly showed the cashier the code, and he stared blankly back at me as in -- "What do you want me to do with that?" I explained that I was paying with PayPal, and he continued to stare. Taking matters into my own hands, I decided to tap the "Pay with PayPal" button on the terminal, which then took me to a screen where I could type in the code. A couple of additional options and questions popped up, I showed the code to the cashier again (who now knew what was going on) and we were done! If I had been more well versed on the process, this checkout may have taken less time than using the chip on my Double Cash card.
A couple of notes:
- PayPal is giving an additional 2% cash back to users through the month of June. Since I have my PayPal account setup to take money from my Double Cash card by default, these transactions this month will gain me 4% in rewards. Sweet!
- In case you're not sure how you have your PayPal account setup, when you select your merchant that you're wanting to pay at, when the code is displayed your payment method will be displayed below that. My Double Cash card and its last four digits were displayed at the bottom of this screen.