PayPal has been around for a good while, but it was only in 2006 that it launched in Canada, enjoying great success. Within just a decade, PayPal had millions of customers across the nation, and even now, PayPal continues to grow at an astonishing rate, with a massive 6.4 million active users as of 2023.
But why has PayPal managed to take over Canada? How did it happen? Let’s take a look.
Push toward small businesses in Canada
As with most of the countries they have launched in, much of PayPal’s growth comes from targeting small businesses.
E-commerce is essential for small businesses nowadays. PayPal makes it simpler than most companies to start accepting payments online. In fact, all that is required is a PayPal account, and people can start accepting payments online. It is that simple.
According to PayPal, within a few years of launching in Canada, it had hundreds of thousands of small businesses receiving payments through its online system. There were also a few big businesses involved, too.
Because it managed to get those small businesses to sign up for the payment processor, it meant that millions of people had to register for accounts to make payments through it, which made things even easier for PayPal to build the number of accounts it has in the country.
They’ve made making payments online easier
One of the major benefits of PayPal is how easy it has made it to make payments online.
Since it operates as an e-wallet, you can add multiple payment methods to your PayPal account, for example, debit card, credit card and bank account. This makes it easier than ever to make payments online.
It also means that most people don’t need to worry about fumbling around with multiple payment methods when they shop online. They just need to know the username and password for their payment account. As you probably know, most people absolutely love the idea of more convenience in their life, so this has really helped to boost PayPal as a global payment platform.
People love the security
This ties somewhat into the previous point. People who use PayPal love how secure it is. When you use PayPal online, there is no need to worry about your credit or debit card details being shared with a random online platform. PayPal doesn’t share details with anybody. We know that making payments online is far, far safer than it used to be. However, people do still want to feel secure when they are making payments online, whether it be for ingredients for dinner, household items or when out and about in Montreal, and PayPal guarantees this.
Accepting mobile payments
PayPal was one of the first online payment platforms that made it dead simple to send and receive payments via mobile devices. This meant that people in Canada could easily send payments to their friends and family from the palm of their hand.
Obviously, there are other systems for this nowadays, but PayPal remains one of the premier platforms in the country for sending and receiving payments.
When PayPal launched mobile payments, just 1% of all the payments sent through its platform came from mobile devices. Nowadays, this figure is closer to 50%. So, we believe that this is an area that PayPal will be focusing a lot of its attention on going forward.
The rise of online gambling in Canada
PayPal has benefitted massively from the rise of online gambling in the country. More and more provinces are allowing it, and PayPal is there to benefit from this growth. PayPal is one of the top accepted payment methods at most online gambling platforms due to its convenience and overall trust in the platform. Most expert ratings for the best PayPal casinos in Canada will often rate platforms higher when they accept PayPal, due to its ease of use and the fact that you can tie a wealth of different payment methods to it.
The future growth of PayPal in Canada
The only way we can see PayPal going is that it will become more and more popular. Over the years, more payment methods – some very similar to PayPal – have entered the market. Some of them are even easier to use than PayPal. However, PayPal has remained at the head of the pack. This is because the company has worked hard to ensure that they are well known and have a stellar reputation that they do everything to protect.
Even now, we see online companies accept PayPal as a payment method for the first time, which means that PayPal is going to claim an even greater market share in Canada. It probably won’t be long before the overwhelming majority of online retailers and gambling platforms in the country accept PayPal.