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PayPal Holdings Inc. Tuesday announced its Fastlane By PayPal checkout service is now officially available to merchants of all sizes in the United States.
PayPal began piloting Fastlane, which speeds guest checkout by allowing online shoppers to complete a purchase in one click, earlier this year with BigCommerce Inc. merchants.
Reducing friction in the guest-checkout process can help boost conversion rates for e-commerce merchants, PayPal says. Increasing conversion among consumers using guest checkout is important, as many online shoppers prefer to check out as a guest even if they have registered an account with the merchant, according to PayPal.
A recent study of 770 consumers by software vendor Capterra Inc. found that 43% of consumers prefer online guest checkout, while 72% say they would still use guest checkout even if they have a store account.
The increase in conversion rates among consumers using Fastlane during the checkout process can be substantial, according to PayPal. Between early April and mid-June, 86% of consumers shopping at Black Forest Décor, a retailer of rustic bedding and cabin décor, who used Fastlane converted their purchase, compared to 76% who used regular guest checkout, PayPal says.
In addition, Black Forest Décor customers using Fastlane completed their purchase in less than two minutes compared to about 3.9 minutes for customers using unbranded guest checkout. Overall, 66% of consumers say they expect online checkout to take less than four minutes, even when checking out as a guest, according to Capterra.
To open a Fastlane account, consumers enter their credit card number, shipping information, and email during checkout. PayPal securely stores the data and auto fills it during future purchases. Fastlane users are identified for future purchases by their email address, which eliminates the need for them to create and remember a password.
In addition to BigCommerce, Fastlane is available through other e-commerce platform providers, including Bold Commerce, Adobe Commerce, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud.
BigCommerce merchants piloting Faslane report consumers using the service for checkout convert more than 80% of the time, compared to 71% otherwise. In addition, Fastlane users convert up to 50% more often than non-Fastlane users, and checkout times for Fastlane users are reduced by 32%, according to BigCommerce.
