The payment service hopes to keep these young consumers around as life-long customers. Similar to PayPal, buying online with Venmo offers purchase protection.

Consumers are able to obtain a complete refund if their online order never arrives or is completely different from what was actually ordered.

This major step forward for Venmo, placing it as a direct competitor to PayPal itself as well as similar services such as Google Wallet.

The move to make Venmo an online checkout option will give merchants a better way to attract millennial shoppers, PayPal explains , as the customer base for the social payments app skews millennial and its users are heavily engaged.

As a plus, retailers will appreciate the exposure that the Venmo feed provides. With Venmo, you can send money to friends and family without giving them your bank account or credit card information.

Venmo also acts as a social media app where you can create a profile, add friends, and share your dining, shopping, and purchasing activities with them.

According to its website, Venmo is still in the process of rolling out availability for online and in-app purchases. All merchants that accept PayPal now have the option of accepting Venmo when customers shop online with their mobile device.

However, that does not mean you can automatically use Venmo at any merchant that takes PayPal; merchants must opt-in to accept Venmo before you can pay with the app.

Venmo payments can only be processed on mobile devices. To shop using Venmo, you must first install the Venmo app on your iOS or Android device.

You can then use Venmo in apps and on mobile websites that offer a Venmo payment option. In addition to electronic payments, Venmo also offers the Venmo card.

This is a Mastercard-branded debit card that you can load with funds from your Venmo account. You can use the debit card to shop at any brick-and-mortar or online merchant that accepts Mastercard.

We researched dozens of merchants, visiting their respective websites and contacting corporate customer service to find out whether or not they accept Venmo for online or in-app purchases.

Venmo uses a purchase from Foot Locker split between two friends as a gift for a third friend as an example. But with the news comes a catch that might slow Venmo from being adopted by retailers as fast as it was with consumers: Ben Mills, head of product, at Venmo, told Reuters that company will charge merchants a fee for processing Venmo payments.

The social aspect of Venmo will also take on a new feel with the update.