Business
Consumers aren’t clicking the PayPal button. It’s a big problem for California’s fintech pioneer
PayPal, once the cutting-edge trailblazer of digital payments, is struggling to cash in on consumer clicks like it used to.
The San José fintech giant is losing market share to competitors and had to swap out its leadership recently as its shares plunged, and it scrambled for a faster fix.
When online shoppers reach the checkout screen, they’re not clicking on the PayPal button to buy items as much as they did in the past. People have payment options from Apple, Google and others, some of which are easier to use on their smartphones.
A slowdown in PayPal’s branded checkout is at the core of the company’s biggest challenges, analysts and company executives said.
In February, PayPal let go of its chief executive, who had been working to fix the problem, but the company said his “pace of change and execution” over two years didn’t meet the board’s expectations.
In the fourth quarter, PayPal’s online branded checkout growth slowed to 1%. The company reported an adjusted profit of $1.23 per share on revenue of $8.68 billion, missing Wall Street’s expectations.
Since January, PayPal’s stock price has fallen by more than 20%.
“The problem is that transition and push for branded checkout really has not paid off,” said Grace Broadbent, a senior analyst of payments for eMarketer.
PayPal attributed the slowdown partly to the “K-shaped economy,” in which wealthier Americans see their incomes rise while lower-income Americans struggle financially. PayPal has many middle-income customers and some lower-income customers, so a pullback in spending affects use of its payments platform.
Other factors that have hurt it recently include product execution and a hit in high-growth areas such as crypto, gaming and ticketing.
The slowdown raised questions about whether PayPal’s turnaround efforts were working. The company makes most of its money by charging fees for payment services.
“The vast majority of PayPal’s profits come from the branded checkout button,” said Mizuho analyst Dan Dolev. “The yield they get when you click on the branded checkout button is multiples of any other product that they have.”
Now the pressure is on Enrique Lores, who became PayPal’s president and chief executive in March, to get the company back on track. Lores was on PayPal’s board for nearly five years and came from computer and printer maker HP, where he served as chief executive. PayPal is investing $400 million to improve and grow branded checkout this year.
“The payments industry is changing faster than ever, driven by new technologies, evolving regulations, an increasingly competitive landscape, and the rapid acceleration of AI that is reshaping commerce daily,” Lores said in a February statement. “PayPal sits at the center of this change, and I look forward to leading the team to accelerate the delivery of new innovations.”
PayPal has seen growth in its subsidiary Venmo, a social mobile payment app, and its buy-now-pay-later services. The company is scheduled to report its first-quarter earnings in May.
“They’re going through some hard times, but I still think there’s a lot of value in PayPal,” Dolev said. “Not that many companies out there that have this kind of moat, which is a global wallet that everyone recognizes.”
Before PayPal transformed into a multibillion-dollar company with 23,800 employees and 439 million active consumer and merchant accounts across roughly 200 markets, the startup weathered a lot of change.
Founded in 1998 under a different company name by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel and Luke Nosek, the startup initially focused on security software for handheld devices before shifting to digital payments.
After merging with Elon Musk’s online bank X.com, the company was renamed PayPal. The platform made it possible for people to securely send money digitally using their email address, which was easier than writing up a check or filling out a money order.
PayPal went public in 2002 and shortly after EBay acquired the startup for $1.5 billion. In 2013, PayPal acquired the fintech company Braintree, which owned the social payment service Venmo, giving PayPal an edge in mobile commerce.
Two years later, it became an independent company when it split from EBay.
PayPal’s founders and early employees, dubbed the “PayPal Mafia” by Fortune magazine in a 2007 story, would go on to invest or build successful Silicon Valley companies.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, PayPal was flying high. People spent a lot of time stuck at home and online shopping skyrocketed. PayPal’s stock price peaked in July 2021, but has plummeted since then.
Over the last five years, its share price has dropped more than 80%.
“Now the industry is maturing, so there’s less growth to go around,” Broadbent said.
The competition is heating up, especially in the United States.
PayPal’s core users in the United States are projected to grow by fewer than 1% year-over-year to 92.1 million in 2026, eMarketer forecasts. Nationwide, Apple and Google are expected to see their digital wallet users grow more, reaching 90.5 million and 55 million U.S. users, respectively.
Apple Pay is popular among Gen Z and makes it easy to pay by double-clicking the side of their phone.
“They do so much more shopping on their phone than ever before, so Apple Pay is ingrained in their iPhone,” Broadbent said.
Google has also integrated its payment service into products such as its browser, Google Chrome. Then there are more buy-now-pay-later services that people are taking advantage of as they spread out their spending on expensive items.
Other challenges are on the horizon for payment services.
Tech companies are contending with the rise of artificial intelligence, which could disrupt the way people shop. Tech executives have talked about a future in which AI agents will shop and buy items on behalf of consumers, with their approval.
Last year, PayPal teamed up with AI company Perplexity so people could use its service to purchase products from retailers such as Abercrombie & Fitch and Ashley Furniture within Perplexity’s chat interface.
“That’s a future challenge for PayPal that opens up a lot of different dynamics of who’s gonna win,” Broadbent said.
Business
Tractor-trailer crosses center divider in Irwindale, killing 1 and injuring 30
A big rig crossed the center divider on the 210 Freeway in Irwindale on Saturday morning, killing one and injuring 30, authorities said.
The mass accident took place before 9 a.m. west of Irwindale Avenue, where emergency personnel arrived to find the truck had collided with several vehicles, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said in a social media post.
One person was pronounced dead at the scene and two were critically injured. Eight minors were taken to the hospital and 22 other crash victims declined treatment, the department said.
The California Highway Patrol temporarily shut down all westbound lanes of the freeway, diverting traffic onto Irwindale Avenue, before opening up one lane.
The CHP issued a SigAlert warning of traffic delays on the westbound lanes, with two lanes on the eastbound side of the freeway also temporarily closed.
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
Business
Ford sues L.A. lemon law firm alleging ‘utter fabrications’ inflated fees by 7,000%
Ford Motor Co. is suing a prominent Los Angeles lemon law firm for allegedly inflating their fees by as much as 7,000%, the company’s latest attempt to crack down on California attorneys who it says are exploiting the state’s unique law to protect consumers from defective cars.
Quill & Arrow, a personal injury firm that represents drivers suing over so-called “lemons” — vehicles with significant, unfixable manufacturing flaws — has long been a thorn in the side of Ford. Since 2021, Ford said its has paid them more than $100 million, roughly half in attorney fees.
That profit, Ford alleges in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday, came from billing records that were “utter fabrications.”
Quill & Arrow used an overseas “army” of low-paid, non-lawyers to help file thousands of lemon lawsuits and then pretended the work was done by California attorneys, who billed as much as $950 per hour, Ford alleged in its complaint.
Ford claims that the bulk of the work was actually done by non-lawyers in countries such as Mexico and the Philippines, who got paid as little as $13 per hour.
Quill & Arrow was founded in 2019 by attorneys Kevin Jacobson and Jonathan Shirian, according to the firm’s website, which touts recovering $500 million in lemon law payouts. The partners called Ford’s lawsuit “nothing more than an attempt to silence firms who would dare to hold them responsible and seek justice for consumers.”
“It grossly mischaracterizes the facts and the claim that Quill & Arrow created fabricated attorney billing records is absurd,” the firm said in a statement.
California’s lemon law, considered one of the strongest consumer protections in the nation, allows drivers to get a refund or replacement of a broken car if the manufacturer can’t fix it. If the driver is not satisfied, they can sue.
If the driver wins, the law allows attorneys to collect their fees from the car maker — rather than take a percentage of the client’s winnings, as is common in personal injury cases. This fee structure, Ford argues, has turned the law into a bonanza for plaintiff attorneys. The longer the case drags on, the company argues, the more the law firm can reap in profit.
Ford alleges the firm intentionally slowed down its clients’ cases to drive up their billable hours, instructing drivers not to communicate with Ford and pushing them toward filing a lawsuit.
“California’s Lemon Laws are in need of reform and the courts need to exercise more oversight, given the fraud we continue to expose,” said Doug Lampe, counsel at Ford, in a statement. The law is “being blatantly abused by the lemon law plaintiffs lawyers, the bar is not policing its own and the courts need to monitor fee awards with far more skepticism and scrutiny.”
The cases, he said, “have become about the lawyers for the lawyers.”
Lemon law cases have exploded in California in the last decade from about 4,500 cases in 2015 to roughly 30,000 in 2024, according to an analysis from the Assembly Judiciary. These cases, officials warned, “are poised to cripple the entirety of California’s civil justice system.”
In 2024, the legislature tightened the state’s lemon law, requiring additional steps before a driver could sue. The bill seems to have put little dent in the caseload: Lemon lawsuits surged to record levels the following year.
Ford’s lawsuit marks the second attempt by one of America’s largest car manufacturers to go on the offense against lemon law attorneys in Southern California.
Ford sued a cohort of local lemon law firms in May 2025, accusing attorneys of collecting at least $100 million in “phantom legal fees” by billing for hours they never worked. The case, which was brought under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, alleged lawyers worked together to file a flurry of fraudulent cases with billable hours that defied logic.
A partner at Knight Law Group, an L.A.-based lemon law firm, once billed an “ostensibly heroic but physically impossible” 57.5-hour workday, Ford alleged.
Knight Law Group denied inflating their billing, calling the suit a “thinly veiled attempt to silence firms who would dare to hold them responsible and seek justice for consumers.”
A judge threw out the suit in March on the grounds that lawyers were protected under the 1st Amendment from being sued for the content of their lawsuits unless the case was proved fraudulent. Ford says it plans to appeal.
After Quill found about the Knight Law Group case, Ford alleged, Quill dedicated a team to “scrubbing” their own timesheets of “impossible time entries.”
Business
Ranch lovers can soon travel with a TSA-friendly kit of the popular American dressing
Ranch dressing is having a moment thanks to the World Cup and Kraft is ready to meet it.
The company said Thursday that it is working on a “TSA Compliant Ranch” for those looking to travel with the quintessentially American condiment. The announcement follows the influx of social media videos showing international soccer fans sampling the dressing for the first time.
“Some visitors leave with souvenirs. Others leave with America’s favorite dressing,” Kraft wrote in a caption accompanying an AI image of a TSA-approved clear bag packed with ranch dressing packets posted to social media. The image showed the bag — complete with a luggage tag resembling a ranch dressing bottle — placed in an airport security screening bin along with other travel essentials.
Additional details will be announced later, the company said.
TSA has also leaned into ranch’s apparent newfound popularity among international travelers, providing some helpful tips (and warnings) on social media.
“If you’re visiting for a very large sporting event & you happen to discover RANCH while you’re here… pls pack it in your CHECKED BAG on your way home,” the agency posted on Instagram Tuesday. It also asked travelers to “avoid chugging your ranch outside security” lines.
“Who knew dip-lomacy could be achieved through addressing the obvious: ranch is the king of condiments,” TSA wrote in the caption accompanying its carousel of humorous ranch-related quips. “If you’re traveling within the U.S., make sure to keep your carry-on sauces to 3.4 oz or less and place any larger containers in your checked bags.”
“Some heroes wear capes. Others bring ranch,” it added.
According to 1987 Times reports, ranch dressing was invented by Steve Henson, who opened the Hidden Valley Guest Ranch in Santa Barbara in the mid-1950s with his wife, Gayle. The unnamed condiment originally mixed herbs and spices with buttermilk and mayonnaise and its popularity with guests led to it being jarred so they could take some home. The more travel-friendly powdered form followed.
-
Oregon45 seconds ago11 Best Small Towns In Oregon For A Crowd-Free Summer
-
Pennsylvania6 minutes agoThousands flock downtown for Juneteenth parade celebrating racial progress and end of slavery
-
Rhode Island13 minutes agoProvidence holds 50th Annual PrideFest
-
South-Carolina16 minutes agoSouth Carolina Lottery Powerball, Pick 3 results for June 20, 2026
-
South Dakota21 minutes ago
SD Lottery Powerball, Lotto America winning numbers for June 20, 2026
-
Tennessee28 minutes ago
Strong storms possible Sunday night into Monday morning for Middle Tennessee
-
Texas31 minutes agoVideo captures aftermath of a fatal stabbing at Texas track meet
-
Utah36 minutes agoWildfire burns in Salt Lake City foothills behind University of Utah