PayPal’s In-Store Shopping Division Hit Hardest In First Round Of Lay-Offs

About a month after they were first announced, the big layoffs at eBay and PayPal have begun.

On Monday, eBay and PayPal employees who were losing their jobs as part of the cuts were notified, multiple sources told Re/code.

Management is reportedly looking to simplify operations as the two companies head toward a split-off planned for the second half of this year.

At PayPal, some cuts have come to PayPal’s in-store initiatives – the division that focuses on getting restaurants and small business retail stores to accept PayPal as a payment method. This division includes mobile payments and the PayPal Here card reader, and is viewed as an under performer within the company, multiple sources say.  PayPal’s beacon product was announced in September of 2013, but is only now shipping to some locations as part of a beta test.

Though PayPal did not limit their cuts entirely to those teams,  the severity of them has some wondering if PayPal’s next move is to refocus on its core Web and in-app payments under CEO-designee Dan Schulman. Braintree, home of the red-hot Venmo peer-to-peer payments app, will be unaffected by the cuts underway.

According to source, neither eBay Marketplace’s nor eBay Enterprise division’s cuts seem as targeted as PayPal’s.

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