

PayPal handles 60% of web transactions, leaves Google in the dust - MRonney
http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/18/paypa-60-percent-of-web-transactions/

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CookWithMe
I call bullshit on the headline. "PayPal handles 60% of web transactions" is
not seen anywhere in the original source (which is about payment performance),
and it is probably wrong.

NewRelic did collect data of their customers (and that is what they have
said), but their customers do not include Amazon. You can not just take their
data and claim they are 100% of web transactions (and NewRelic has not done
that). I bet Amazon does make up a big percentage of all web transactions
(though smaller than PayPal).

~~~
baconist
Further, Cybersource isn't mentioned anywhere. I have a very hard time
believing that New Relic doesn't have any large Cybersource customers.

~~~
drone
Agreed, the article is egregiously misleading, the data only samples that from
one provider, with no explanation of how many companies and of what size and
type of merchants that provider handles.

EDIT: Somehow my comment got linked to this one, instead of the parent. For
the above comment, I'd add: Cybersource owns Authorize.net, and tends to use
them as the gateway (my experience as an ex cybersource customer was that they
had us use Authorize.net as the gateway, and CS was the merchant bank).

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yequalsx
Google Checkout had a fatal flaw when I looked at using it many years ago. It
required that a buyer have a Google account. Paypal doesn't require this. A
buyer can use their credit card. They don't need to sign up for anything. This
simple fact alone made me think that Google Checkout would never take off.
Google wasn't interested in helping me conduct business. It was more
interested in getting Google accounts.

~~~
rosstamicah
"Paypal doesn't require this. A buyer can use their credit card. They don't
need to sign up for anything."

This is not exactly true. When a buyer uses their credit card they are
promoted to add an email address which essentially creates a Paypal account
for them. They may never actually log into that Paypal account and use it, but
they will have a paypal account with the info they've entered. It's Paypal's
sneaky way of signing people up.

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spatten
I wonder how much of this is due to the fact that Google and Authorize.net are
both US only and PayPal is international. Amazon Checkout is also US only.

I'd love to add another payment processor (Stripe, please!) without going
through the pain of getting a merchant account, but I'm screwed because I live
about 50 km too far north.

I'm rooting for Stripe, but I think whoever supports international companies
first is going to have a good, locked-in by the pain of switching, advantage.

~~~
entropy_
It is not true that Google is US only(I don't know about Authorize.net). I'm
in the Middle East and I use Google Checkout just fine for buying stuff.

~~~
spatten
Sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant for sellers, not buyers.

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nextparadigms
Google made such a horrible, horrible mistake by not promoting Google Checkout
as fast as they could ever since it launched. It would've been a huge
advantage for them and for the Android ecosystem if most Android users had a
Google Checkout account right now. For years I didn't hear anything about
further developments or adoptions of Google Checkout.

I think this is still the #1 reason why fewer people buy apps on Android
compared to iOS, where everyone had an iTunes account thanks to the iPod.
Google, too, had the opportunity to lay the groundwork for a payment system
for Android years before, and they didn't take advantage of it. Now, they and
their Android developers suffer for it.

I've noticed that with Android 4.0 it asks everyone in the beginning to set-up
a Google Wallet/Checkout account. This should help things a bit, but only when
everyone has an ICS or later phone, which will take a while. But even with
this, there's not much reason for people to sign-up to Google Wallet right
now. So Google still needs to make Google Wallet a popular payment method if
they want to benefit from all the synergies they would get with it.

Also, I don't even know - but does it allow you to take money out of the
account now, or is it still only about putting money in it and then buying
stuff?

~~~
nhebb
They made several other mistakes at roll out as well. I had an account with
them when they launched, and I dropped them for a couple of reasons. The user
interface for vendors had serious problems that were widely complained about
in Google Groups, and they went unaddressed for months. Also, they allowed
customers to choose a privacy option that hide their name, email, and other
information from the vendor. That sounds great from a user's perspective, but
when I couldn't verify that someone seeking support actually purchased my
product, it made it unfeasible for me.

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brd
original source: [http://blog.newrelic.com/2012/05/18/infographic-top-
performi...](http://blog.newrelic.com/2012/05/18/infographic-top-performing-
payment-gateways-is-the-most-popular-gateway-the-fastest/)

and direct link to the infographic: [http://blog.newrelic.com/wp-
content/uploads/PaymentGateway-I...](http://blog.newrelic.com/wp-
content/uploads/PaymentGateway-Infographic_New-Relic.jpg)

------
NelsonMinar
And every one of those transactions has some stupid ad for a Paypal credit
card interposed between me and the merchant I'm buying from.

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joelrunyon
I can't wait until Stripe and WePay get enough traction to cut into this. It
is encouraging though, to know Stripe is already the 4th most called gateway.

~~~
ZeroMinx
I've not used it yet, but I would still like to add GoCardless to this list.

<https://gocardless.com/>

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bdfh42
Yeah but which one are you going to trust a chunk of your business revenue to?

~~~
tomgallard
PayPal without a doubt.

You hear horror stories about both (for Google e.g.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2483609> ,
[http://ask.metafilter.com/178634/How-to-get-Google-
Checkout-...](http://ask.metafilter.com/178634/How-to-get-Google-Checkout-to-
give-us-our)) . Granted- more about PayPal, but they handle a lot more
payments for a lot more people. What nearly all these horror stories have in
common is that they're gathering pre-payments/donations for some even in the
future. You rarely hear it from those shipping physical or digital products.

Generally they're pretty good. They've got low fees, they work worldwide, no
need for a PayPal account to pay, and you get the money quickly.

They're widely trusted by a lot of consumers as their refund policy is very
buyer friendly.

On one of my sites I offer PayPal vs Fastspring as a payment choice, and well
over 90% choose PayPal.

~~~
koeselitz
On the contrary, almost all of the horror stories about PayPal I've heard are
regarding shipping physical products - largely on Ebay. Or is that not what
you meant?

~~~
Duff
EBay horror stories are usually transactional based on buyer/seller conflict.
(including fraud) In those cases, Paypal is just the party stuck in the
middle.

On the positive side, at least there is a chance of an amicable resolution
with PayPal. 10 years ago, a sketchy buyer would be sending you a fake money
order.

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fsckin
I put a $3500 PC on eBay a few years ago, and was left holding the empty bag.
That sucked pretty good.

Can someone fix that part about online transactions?

~~~
bmelton
I'm not terribly familiar with them, but is there something wrong with escrow
services, or did you just not use one?

I think most people opt not to because it drives up the price of what they're
selling "unnecessarily", and I think that's fine for smaller transactions, but
any time you're talking 4 figures, I think it makes sense to use one.

~~~
makomk
I'm pretty sure eBay rules forbid sellers from requiring buyers to use escrow
- they require all sellers to accept Paypal directly as a form of payment - so
that's no use as protection against fraudulent buyers.

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chaostheory
I think it's really strange that Amazon isn't on this list. The title should
be changed to "60% of New Relic customer web transactions are Paypal".

