PayPal may be the most popular payment gateway on the Web, but it could use a little improving when it comes to speed, according to a recent study by New Relic, an application performance management company.
It found that, though eBay’s payment processor accounted for about 60 percent of the more than 65,000 online transactions that took place during its test period—making it the most popular gateway on the Web—PayPal was 10th in terms of speed, with a mean transaction time of 1.45 seconds.
That may seem fast to some, but it was just “mediocre,” notes John Koetsier, reporting for Venture Beat.
Google, which was the fifth-most used payment processor, had a transaction time of just 0.26 seconds, making it No.1 for speed, the survey finds.
John Essex, a spokesman for New Relic, tells reporters that speed is important when it comes to keeping customers.
“As with any step in the online shopping experience, it’s increasingly critical for the payment gateway functions to happen quickly and effortlessly for the consumer,” Essex says. “Any lag in transaction time can lead to loss of a return customer. No one likes to be kept waiting.”
Authorize.net, the second-most used payment gateway, was the fourth fastest with a mean transaction time of 0.93 seconds. Eway.com.au, an Australian payment gateway, was the slowest payment processor with a mean transaction time of 4.16 seconds. It was ninth on the popularity scale.