Despite being in the lead for the first couple of months of the holiday shopping season, PayPal has been overtaken by Google Checkout in terms of visits over the last two weeks, according to new figures.Statistics produced by Hitwise indicate that, while PayPal enjoyed significant popularity at the beginning of the season, peaking at the beginning of November, the online payment processing service provided by Google has remained just ahead of its rival over the last 14 days.
According to Robin Goad of Hitwise, the reason behind the relative upturn of Google Checkout is the fact that it has different sources of traffic to its eBay-owned competitor.
Whereas only 2.2 per cent of PayPal users come from non-auction shopping and classified sites, Google Checkout sees 45.3 per cent of its traffic sourced from such sites.
In the list of the top 20 websites visited by internet users before they went to Google Checkout, Google UK came first, followed by Goldsmiths, the Vodafone Shop and Find Me a Gift.
Also featuring in the list were Advanced MP3 Players and Serenata Flowers.
In contrast, the majority (59.1 per cent) of those who use PayPal come from its parent's online auction site, while a further 11.7 per cent come from a combination of social networks, banks and email providers.
Therefore, as festive shopping gained momentum, the more broadly-based Google Checkout benefited from its connections with popular retail websites.
PayPal became a wholly-owned subsidiary of eBay in October 2002.
