PayPal offers $100 million in rebates and free shipping incentives in time for holiday season

Monday, November 6th 2006, 3:13 pm

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) PayPal, the payment service company owned by online auction site eBay Inc., said Monday it will launch an incentive program, allowing customers who subscribe to the service to receive cash rebates of up to $20 on several thousand merchants' sites in North America.

In a release, PayPal said that the cash rebate programs, valued at $100 million, will be available to consumers from November 23rd through May 15th. Free shipping promotions will be available beginning November 23rd.

Some of the merchants' sites in addition to eBay that will offer PayPal customers cash rebate offers are cooking.com, starbucks.com, walgreens.com and buy.com, according to Amanda Pires, a PayPal spokeswoman.

In the third quarter, PayPal contributed $350 million to eBay's top line, up 41 percent from a year ago, and claimed a total of 123 million users. The payment system faces competition from Google Inc.'s Google Checkout, an online wallet and payment system that launched in June.

Shares of eBay rose 45 cents, or $1.39 percent, to $32.84 in early afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.