How Ticketmaster elevates the fan experience with payment solutions from PayPal

The opportunity

Meeting fans where they are and getting them to their dream events

As the world’s largest ticket marketplace, Ticketmaster connects fans to events of all kinds, offering tickets to concerts, sporting events, festivals, theatre shows and many more. From selecting tickets to attending the big event, Ticketmaster is committed to creating seamless experience for every fan.

With a diverse global audience in mind, Ticketmaster operates with global consistency and local understanding to adapt to fan’s unique preferences and offer a secure, personalized experience.

The solution

Providing multiple PayPal payment options for global audiences

Ticketmaster’s longstanding relationship with PayPal started with PayPal Checkout and has expanded over the years. Today, PayPal is a preferred way to pay globally on Ticketmaster. With a broad spectrum of buying behaviors by its various fans came the need for payment flexibility, and the addition of Venmo and PayPal Pay Later were natural choices.

Ticketmaster knows a thing or two about what makes people fans. And if there’s one payment option with a fandom, it’s Venmo. Venmo fans have turned the name into a verb; it’s almost as much a social tool as it is financial with options such as posting a public comment after a purchase or tracking shared expenses when buying for a group. Exactly the kinds of buying experiences Millennials and Gen Z want–and one survey of Venmo users found that more than 60% of respondents are Millennial and Gen Z.² As Cheung explains, “Venmo’s a good example of the investment PayPal keeps making where they acknowledge that there’s a very specific fan demographic and offer an optimal payment experience for those people.”

PayPal Pay Later options offer even more flexibility to allow more fans to see the athletes and artists they love perform. “PayPal Pay Later solutions are great for Ticketmaster because they allow fans to truly pay in the way that they want, in a way that suits them.” When a fan chooses Pay Later, they have the option to Pay in 4,³ or to Pay Monthly, ⁴ without late fees. Buyers who use Pay Later spend around 30% more with PayPal,⁵ and 74% of Pay Later purchases are from repeat buyers.⁶ These buying behaviors are crucial for Ticketmaster, as they regularly add new inventory and want to make once-in-a-lifetime events available to as many fans as possible.

The impact.

Delivering a unified global checkout and operational efficiencies

For fans and Ticketmaster alike, the array of PayPal options has simplified checkout. Fans know that their payment is secure with PayPal, Ticketmaster trusts PayPal Braintree to offer fans secure, smooth payment processing around the world. For fans, Reddy adds, “The value in PayPal is you want to know that you have a safe, secure way to check out and get the tickets you love.”

With a single unified platform, PayPal makes reconciliation easy for Ticketmaster–on everything from financial settlement to operations. Cheung emphasizes how PayPal’s consolidated reporting helps Ticketmaster offer even more to their clients. “That’s definitely allowed my team to pull out very granular insights about payments performance.”

Knowing those insights, being able to anticipate fans’ needs and desires: That’s what the power of the relationship of Ticketmaster and PayPal is all about. Reddy sums up the value that PayPal’s global reach and ability to scale delivers. “Having PayPal support a business like ours that operates at such a global scale and breadth is integral to offer distinct customer experiences. PayPal is there every step of the way to support how we operate.”

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