Partner With Us

E-mail publishing solutions company Topica Inc. scored a partnership deal with online payments outfit PayPal that allows for the creation of secure PayPal "Buy It" buttons directly within things such as newsletters produced with Topica's applications.

Mountain View, Calif.-based PayPal said that small businesses, non-profits, Web entrepreneurs and other users of the Topica Email Publisher product can now create e-commerce buying opportunities on the fly.

"Topica's integration with PayPal -- one of the first-ever between a publishing platform and a payment platform -- has removed the obstacles for impulse and non-impulse buyers, and a sale is now only a mouse-click away," said Scott Olrich, senior vice president of corporate development for San Francisco-based Topica.

As part of the partnership, PayPal said it would promote Topica Email Publisher to its 16 million accounts as an additional avenue for increasing sales. In exchange, Topica will promote the availability of PayPal's e-commerce functionality to its userbase of publishers. The ability to integrate PayPal into email newsletters will also be offered to users of Topica Exchange, Topica's free community-based e-mail service.

"Many of our small business customers sell goods and services through auctions and through their own Web storefronts," said Peter Ashley, PayPal's director of business development. "We're looking forward to introducing them to Topica Email Publisher ... to increase their sales through an additional channel ..."

Topica customers include IDG Communications; People magazine; CMP Publications and the National Geographic Society. The company was founded in 1998 and is backed by investors including Morgan Stanley, TLCom Ltd., August Capital and Highland Capital.