PayPal has suffered major service outages connected to holiday shopping, according to new reports.
The payment processor posted notices about disruptions in its APIs for merchants, and appears to have experienced these service outages both Sunday and today. The company hasn’t yet officially commented on the outages, but many speculate that they are connected to high traffic volumes occurring in response to Cyber Monday sales; American retailer Target has also suffered disruptions and credited them to such heightened online activity.
The outages are an embarrassing development for PayPal as it attempts to raise its profile during the holiday shopping season, especially given its recent service disruption at the end of October. While PayPal said that incident was caused by a power outage at one of its data centers, the timing of these latest problems suggest they’re a matter of simply being unable to cope with increased traffic, which could prove even more problematic for the company’s reputation.
On the other hand, it is just one or two days of relatively minor service disruptions, and with special holiday promotions like its offer to cover shipping on returned gifts, PayPal could end up with a much more favorable image among holiday shoppers by the year’s end.
Follow Us