This time of year many eTailers begin preparing for the school shopping season. We posted about Walmart’s back-to-school promotion using their Facebook Group a few days ago, however Walmart isn’t the only major eCommerce entity who realizes the potential for Online sales during the school shopping season. Paypal is also getting ready for the back-to-school shopping season and recently announced the launch of a their new back-to-school shopping portal, powered by TheFind.com.

PayPal’s School Shopping Portal:

PayPal’s new portal features special school shopping deals from a variety of brand name merchants including Dell, HP, Alienware, Newegg.com, Barnes & Noble Books, Northwest Airlines and many more. PayPal is targeting both boys and girls with products designed to appeal to students from all different grade levels ranging from elementary school, middle school, high school and college.

Instant Win Game:

PayPal is also offering students and users who visit the portal a chance to win thousands of prizes and even an opportunity to walk away with $10,000.00 in cash (other prizes include a PS3, MacBook Pro and two airline tickets). The instant win game is a flash style card flip where you enter your email address including security characters and follow the instructions on the screen to see if you won. If a prize is revealed you win, if there is no prize revealed it’s not a win. The official rules are on the PayPal Instant Win Game page.

The Promotion begins at 2:00:01 PM Pacific Time (PT) on August 7, 2007 and ends 11:59:59 PM PT on September 5, 2007 (the “Promotion Period”). There will be 2,437 Instant Win prizes (”Instant Win prizes”) awarded throughout the Promotion Period and one (1) prize (”Random Drawing Sweepstakes prize”) awarded in a random drawing at the end of the Promotion Period. Limit one (1) instant win prize per person.

Students Provide Feedback:

Another unique idea for PayPal’s campaign is their Meet the Students section, where students spoke via a survey with PayPal about shopping for back to school products. They surveyed 1500 college students, high school students and parents from June 27th, 2007 to July 10th, 2007. It’s basically testimonials and user-reviews from students about back-to-school shopping.

Here’s what some of them had to say…

Online is a great way to shop - 80% of college students and 43% of high school students say they will shop online for back to school. Popular items? Clothes, shoes electronics.

Everyone needs clothes - 74% of high-school students call clothing a back-to-school “must-have.” The boys like their clothes baggy, while the girls favor a form-fitting look.

Electronics are hot - 50% of college students and 30% of high-school students put electronics at the top of their shopping lists. iPods and laptops are the most popular items.

There’s no doubt that back-to-school shopping season is in full force now. Son it will end and eTailers will prepare for the holiday shopping season. Can’t wait to see what kind of unique ideas and different marketing promotioins some of the major eTailers come up for this years holiday season. If thee back-to-school shopping season is an indication of what’s to come, we will be in for a nice treat. Happy school shopping all, hope you like PayPal’s portal, powered by TheFind.com.

PayPal’s shopping list search results are powered by TheFind.com! Our discovery shopping engine lets you find products, and compare prices from the most comprehensive set of stores online. Our goal is to help shoppers find the best products online and to make online shopping easy.