Opentabs Taps PayPal For Mobile Ordering

German mobile-ordering and payment app Opentabs has added PayPal to its options for restaurant and bar payment, Mobile Commerce Daily reported.

Customers who previously had to use a credit or debit card to pay with the app can now use PayPal at participating restaurants, including Burger King, Asia Gourmet and the San Francisco Coffee Company, the Munich-based company said.

“Opentabs is integrating PayPal because it was on the top of our users’ wish list,” Opentabs Managing Director Dirk Roder said. “People feel safe using PayPal for online purchases, and that also counts for PayPal in the bricks-and-mortar business. Secondly, it was easy to set up and PayPal was pleased with our PIN feature to secure payments.”

Users who order ahead using the Opentabs app also average 19 percent higher sales per restaurant visit than customers who don’t use the app, “which makes it really interesting for merchants as well,” Roder said.

For PayPal, the interest in partnerships like the one with Opentabs may lie in a different direction. Later this year, eBay’s payments arm is scheduled to separate from its parent, which will open up new potential alliances. But the spinoff also means PayPal needs to make another run at getting merchants and customers to use PayPal with brick-and-mortar merchants.

While the soon-to-be-independent-company says it has a variety of in-store plans underway, PayPal has had a discouraging history trying to translate its success in eCommerce payments to in-store point-of-sale systems. In 2012 it partnered with Home Depot to integrate PayPal payments with the home-improvement chain’s POS devices, and did a deal with Discover to make that available to any merchant on Discover’s network. Neither effort gained traction, and when former PayPal executive Don Kingsborough left the company early this year he said he was “disappointed” at PayPal’s lack of in-store progress.

But with the successful launch of Apple Pay, PayPal may be running out of time to make that progress. While the company is in the process of acquiring Paydiant to help on the point-of-sale end, it may also be hoping to use app integrations like Opentabs to leverage its online-payments strength and sidestep the cashier altogether.