In an article titled "Closing the Deal at the Virtual Checkout Counter", Claire Cain Miller writes for the New York Times about how consumers sometimes load up their shopping carts online - and then just abandon them. She notes that "while there is no industrywide data, some e-commerce companies estimate that only about 3 percent of shoppers who visit an e-commerce site buy something, and when they do load their shopping carts, as many as two-thirds abandon them."

TrialPay has announced that it is expanding its payment and promotions solutions to "include a Purchase Incentive Platform, which lets online sellers optimize conversions and boost Average Order Value (AOV) while reducing promotional costs, like deep discounts and free shipping." READ MORE

TrialPay has announced the launch of a new shopping web site where "shoppers can buy gifts from their favorite brands—and get a free present for themselves in the process (movie tickets, software licenses, game subscriptions, career advice and more)." READ MORE

TrialPay has announced reaching two milestones today: supporting 6,000 merchants and acquiring its 12 millionth user. According to the company, "this represents a 20 percent growth in merchant and user numbers in just over a month for the two-year-old payment platform." READ MORE

TrialPay has announced the launch of a new Gifts & Gourmet category with the company saying that "top companies from the food industry have enlisted in this new advertising section, marking a milestone for the payment method widely used for digital goods and services." READ MORE

TrialPay has announced that, In less than two years, it now has more than 10 million users with more than 5,000 premier merchants having adopted its unique payment platform.

According to TrialPay, "unlike regular options such as Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Google Checkout and Bill Me Later, TrialPay actually increases a customer's willingness to pay by giving a 2-for-1 with every purchase. In just its second year, TrialPay counts 18 million visitors each month and 40,000 new users every day from around the globe to rival that of other top-tier online payment companies." READ MORE

Glenbrook's Allen Weinberg and Jim Salters are attending this week's Payments 2008 conference in Las Vegas. Here's Allen's second report from today's sessions including his notes on the panel he chaired this afternoon titled “Payments aren’t about Payments Anymore”.

TrialPay has announced it is partnering with FreshGames to give away ZenGems, Cubis 2 and the Cubis 2 Expansion Pack for free. Using TrialPay, players can get FreshGames’ most popular titles free for a limited time by trying or buying an offer from blue-chip advertisers. READ MORE

TrialPay has announced that is has closed a $12.7 millionSeries B round of financing - bringing the total amount raised to $15.8 million. The company also announced that it now has 5.2 million registered users - with over 15,000 new users joining TrialPay daily.

In an article titled 'A Referral Service That Ensures Someone Actually Makes a Sale', Bob Tedeschi writes for the New York Times about TrialPay's 'new marketing method that relies on a web of business relationships to give consumers free goods, as long as they buy something else from a long list of well-known online stores.' [Note: Glenbrook recently published a briefing about TrialPay.]

Ryan Kim reports for the San Francisco Chronicle about how TrialPay and FTD are teaming up. "Let's say you're shopping at Cnet's Download.com for some software but the price seems to be getting in your way. Well, TrialPay is offering to make the software free if you buy some flowers at FTD. They'll also take 10 percent off the price of your flower purchase." [Note: Glenbrook recently published a briefing about TrialPay titled "Converting Customers With TrialPay - A New Payment Alternative for Online Merchants" .]

Payments News has covered TrialPay several times. Recently, Glenbrook's Russ Jones and Scott Loftesness completed a fourteen-page Research Brief entitled "Converting Customers With TrialPay - A New Payment Alternative for Online Merchants." To request a complimentary PDF copy of this Glenbrook Research Brief, click here.

TrialPay has partnered with Skype to enable Skype users to be able to make free SkypeOut or international calls when the user tries or buys from TrialPay's network of partners.

TrialPay has announced that it has achieved more than 2.6 million registered users, 1,000 merchants and over 2,000 advertisers using its platform and that its user base continues to grow with more than 10,000 individuals registering daily.

Rebecca Buckman writes for the Wall St. Journal about TrialPay, a Mountain View, California-based startup that allows web merchants to offer consumers goods and services for free - if the consumer accepts another unrelated offer such as agreeing to open a new credit card account. Buckman writes about Zagat's use of TrialPay: "Zagat gets paid by the partner Web merchants for directing business their way -- sometimes even more than the $24.95 cost of a yearly Zagat subscription." More details at the TrialPay web site - and in this earlier article we posted on Payments News for July 17, 2007.

We met recently with Alex Rampell, CEO of TrialPay, a Mountain View, California-based company that provides merchants with a new payment method that allows customers to pay for products by trying or buying from a network of advertisers.