Checkout process taking more than 11 sec to place the order and show order confirmation

[rjwahabmughal]

Used WooCommerce with combination of WooCommerce Square and WooCommerce subscription and on checkout page time when i click on place order button and the time order confirmation screen is visible to me have a time of 11.5 to 12 sec. which is insanely high.

I want to reduce this to 3 or 4 seconds.

[rjwahabmughal]

@vikrampm1 can i get any update on this one? is there any solution to solve this problem?

[lynnjat7]

8750916-zen More info in this ticket. Extensive testing by the HE team has shown a baseline for a Square checkout, from Place Order to Thank You page, is somewhere between 8 and 9 seconds. The addition of other plugins + a page builder adds to this time for some merchants.

[develper1122]

Hi, Last update related to Slow Checkout was 3 weeks ago. Can we get any update on this ticket? When can this issue be resolved from dev side?

This delay is massively effecting our customers expectations with orders and your plugins are not compatible with Shopify and other sites that are much faster.

How does your team plan to correct this?

[vikrampm1]

Hey all, we are looking into this and will share an update on our findings soon.

[develper1122]

Hi @vikrampm1 can i get any update on this this issue please? I am waiting for your reply.

[Sidsector9]

Hi all 👋

I'm unable to reproduce this on:

• WooCommerce 9.3.3
• WooCommerce Square 4.8.2
• WooCommerce Subscription 6.8.0

For me it takes between 3-4 seconds.

Screen-2024-11-01-14415.PM.mp4

@rjwahabmughal @develper1122 can you try the following steps:

1. Deactivate all the other plugins except the 3 mentioned above
2. Switch to a default theme like Storefront
3. Test time taken for Checkout. If it is still slow then we can investigate further.

If Checkout processing time is reduced, that would indicate that the slowness is caused by some other plugins or the theme.
Test Checkout by activating the plugins one by one so that we can narrow down on the problematic plugin.

[develper1122]

Hi @Sidsector9

This is the URL for ticket that was created with WooCommerce that has all the discussion.
https://wordpress.org/support/topic/slow-woocommerce-checkout-with-square-payment-credit-card/

I and WooCommerce team are on same page related to this issue. we both got 8 to 12 seconds. with no plugin installed state. Even Woo Happiness Engineer did the testing at there side as well.

[develper1122]

@Sidsector9

for more information this is the video with no plugin on my system.

1. WooCommerce
2. WooCommerce Square
3. StoreFront Theme

https://www.loom.com/share/806eb6a115d4406c86d05d208456708b?sid=7e48a3c2-d3bb-4a85-9e13-5e7c17492bc8

also I tested this plugin combination on a test server as well. On hostinger server and got the same results. following is the video URL.
https://www.loom.com/share/1330ad26545349ddbad7f1dccdf567c5?sid=f737f3c8-c92d-460d-8658-76db5430c202

also in this ticket @lynnjat7 updated the message about there findings from WooCommerce Side. So they getting same delay that i am getting.

[Sidsector9]

Thanks for sharing the additional info @develper1122
I tested it on a live site, I am getting between 5-6 seconds with the same setup.
This will require profiling various areas of the plugin to find what is causing the slowdown.

What is weird to me is that COD is taking 5 to 8 seconds as per the thread. For me, the live site takes between 1 to 1.5 seconds.

[develper1122]

@Sidsector9 if you need anything other than video from my side I am willing to share that. We definitely just want this issue to be resolved.

Just to confirm this issue is not only on 1 server. I have tested this on multiple servers with fresh installations. And delay is there.
Also your happiness engineer tried at their side with same delay as well. I can provide you ticket number as well that i have been in contact with WooCommerce for past 2 months.

[develper1122]

We have a staging environment already set for this. We have sandbox account created as well for square payment. You can try to place order here as well.

URL: https://staging.primebrands.com/

This website is on Virtual server so this website is having the highest resources of the server. So server delay is not an issue here. Verified that already

[develper1122]

Hi @Sidsector9 did you get anything related to this issue? Just wanna ask if there is any update on this?

[develper1122]

Hi all

@Sidsector9 @vikrampm1 @lynnjat7

I am still waiting on an update on this issue! This is a critical issue and the delay in checkout is causing bad user experience for our customers. We want to this to be resolved. Can i get any update that is someone working on this or not?

[vikrampm1]

@develper1122 I am checking with the team and will share an update here.

[qasumitbagthariya]

@develper1122

I performed all the steps like a normal user: navigating to the shop page, selecting a product, adding it to the cart, and proceeding to the checkout page. Based on my testing, the checkout page load time is 2.07 seconds, which is within an acceptable range.

Active plugins:

• WooCommerce 9.4.2
• WooCommerce Square 4.8.3
• WooCommerce Subscription 6.9.0
• Server: nginx/1.16.0
• PHP - 8.0.30

Screen.Recording.2024-11-20.at.6.38.06.PM.mov

Status update:
@vikrampm1 @Sidsector9

[develper1122]

@vikrampm1 @qasumitbagthariya This is not the correct way to calculate this time. 2 seconds in your attached video is just for loading the order confirmation page.

Set a timer on the screen. Start the timer at the second you click PLACE ORDER button and stop the timer when this THANK YOU PAGE is visible.

If I calculate the time in your provided video above:

1. You clicked place order at 42 second
2. Order placed at 54 sec
3. Confirmation page appeared at 55 sec.

So, the total loading time in your case is 42 sec to 54 sec which is 12 seconds in total. This time is too long and causing issue for our customers. In your video scenario as you confirmed you only have 4 plugins installed all on the latest versions. Even the PHP version is 8+. When i have a working project my project gave 13 to 15 seconds of loading as well.

This time should be reduced. Other competitors have this loading time of 3 to 4 seconds only. This is the main issue here. Hope this scenario is clear to you. Still need any clarifications on this please do let me know. But we definitely want this issue to be resolved. We have been waiting on this for a long time now.

[develper1122]

@qasumitbagthariya Just to let you know. I did all above time calculation on this video Screen.Recording.2024-11-20.at.6.38.06.PM.mov that you provided. You can have a look yourself.

[qasumitbagthariya]

Hello @develper1122

Thank you for clarifying, and I apologize for the misunderstanding in my initial assessment. You are absolutely correct that the time should be measured from when the "Place Order" button is clicked until the "Thank You" page is fully visible. I appreciate you pointing this out.

To address this further, I cross-verified the process today using an InstaWP site, and here are my findings:

• For Subscription product + square credit card purchases, the loading time is approximately 6-7 seconds.
• For cash on delivery (COD) orders, the loading time is around 4–5 seconds.

Simple product + COD Payment

COD.Payment.mov

Subscription product + Credit Card

Credit.card.mov

Status update:
@vikrampm1 @Sidsector9

[jeffpaul]

For Subscription product + square credit card purchases, the loading time is approximately 6-7 seconds.

Would be great to see this closer to 3-4 seconds, may be worth reaching out to some folks from the WordPress Performance team who may have some advice on this sort of topic in general but otherwise will want to profile what's happening here to see if we can reduce that runtime as best possible.

cc: @Sidsector9

[develper1122]

Hi @qasumitbagthariya

The time that you mentioned 6-7 seconds is when you dont have even a single plugin installed other than 4 plugins that you mentioned. And to correct you for me it was 8-10 seconds on different servers. Even tried on VPS server as well!

This delay is causing great issue for our customers and needs to be updated. I will be waiting for the response.

cc: @jeffpaul @Sidsector9

[develper1122]

Hi @Sidsector9 @qasumitbagthariya @vikrampm1

Can i get any update related to this issue? Is something being done about this or still in progress? Just want to know the status of this ticket.

[jeffpaul]

@develper1122 this issue is not actively being worked on but is on our active project board so should see some attention at some point, but is right now a top priority as we sort through other items across various Woo extensions.

[develper1122]

Hi @jeffpaul

I believe this task is not been actively worked on priority right now. But for this task we have spent a lot of time. Also we have specifically purchased a VPS server specifically for this task where we have set our staging.primebrands.com website to do the testing.

In previous chats and communication we have shared the videos and working on VPS server as well and normal server as well. And that sever amount we are paying monthly as well just for our staging site to get that Checkout loading time to be resolved.

1. Do you think we really need that VPS server at this point?
2. And also its been almost 6 months for this issue here and more than that while discussing with WooCommerce team. So what time you project that this will be resolved? Like any time span or limit that we can get related to this?

These 2 question mentioned above are really solid concerns that we need to clear. If you can please clear these up so it would be great help.

@Sidsector9 @qasumitbagthariya @vikrampm1

[jeffpaul]

If anyone is able to contribute additional insights (e.g., profiling data or plugin configurations) to help expedite a confirmation on root cause, then that'll help move along towards a fix here. There's no current ETA on when this will otherwise be actionable for our team, but as we wrap up other projects will attempt to replicate here to find a root cause.

[develper1122]

Hi @jeffpaul ,

We have expressed to you over a couple of months ago that on submitting payments it is taking 12 to 15 seconds to process, which is extremely delayed and due to this we are losing customers. ( On both sites, Procana.com and Primebrands.com )

This 12 to 15 seconds delay when processing payments with Square is far delayed beyond any other type of payment processor.

As we have also confirmed with you that your competitor “Shopify” takes 3.5 seconds to process payment.

You are supposed to be top level service to correct this issue. Between all of our accounts we spent thousands of dollars per year with WooCommerce. If you guys don’t fix this issue then we probably have to leave to your competitors soon.

Please confirm where things are.

Sincerely

Developer,
Abdul

cc: @Sidsector9 @qasumitbagthariya @vikrampm1

[jeffpaul]

@develper1122 this does not seem to be a widely reported issue and our team has not been able to replicate your 12-15 second processing times. So unless you're able to help point out places where the Square extension can be better tuned based on what you see on your site, then there's really not much we can do to further triage and resolve for you.

[houmark]

I work with a client that runs a WooCommerce store and use the Square plugin for payments. The processing time is also 10-12 secs or in some cases more. Yes, this site runs quite a lot of plugins (over 50) but due to their needs, it's really not possible to lower that amount.

We have done tests where we removed different potential offending plugins but nothing have done significant changes to the processing time when the client pays.

I'm sorry I cannot provide more technical details or profiling data. This is a production site and we cannot be messing around with things, but I would assume that the WooCommerce team have various test installations with many common plugins and they should be able to not only test and verify this problem, but with their knowledge, they should also be able to profile on a much higher level than their clients.

[develper1122]

Hi @jeffpaul ,

As we have got another person who confirmed the exact same delay of 12 to 15 seconds that we are facing on our checkout as well. And as per message from @houmark he is using the same combination of plugins that we are using that is WooCommerce and WooCommerce Square.

And I agree with him on this point that WooCommerce is the one who should have the complete knowledge of the integration of payment gateway. And if multiple people are getting the same type of delay then it's their responsibility to look into this and provide a faster solution for payment processing using Square integration.

And just to let you know I have no idea how WooCommerce is communicating with Square API at backend for payment confirmation. WooCommerce should have tests in various functions to point out the performance issues in functions that are causing this massive delay of 12 to 15 seconds.

Regards,
Abdul

cc: @Sidsector9 @qasumitbagthariya @vikrampm1

[develper1122]

Hi @jeffpaul

We are a paying customer of WooCommerce for many plugins. For not getting support, we are having to consider moving to Shopify. There should not be this much delay in payment processing and what are you going to do to assist in this correction?

cc: @Sidsector9 @qasumitbagthariya @vikrampm1

[jeffpaul]

@develper1122 as noted several times, we're unable to replicate the load times you're reporting and as such have no way to further triage to see what the root cause is. If you have a WooCommerce Happiness Engineer that's working on a support ticket for you, then they may have better access to your site and all the plugins, theme, and any other settings or customizations to help triage. Until someone can replicate and/or help identify a root cause there's not much we can do.

[develper1122]

Hi @lynnjat7

We had a long discussion about this on a WooCommerce Ticket and you confirmed the issue and also Verified that delay is there. Can you please try to explain the team here how you got the delay issue at your side.

Because when i had an initial discussion with you, you confirmed that the delay is there. So, If you are having the issue and my all videos also show that payment delay is there then why other members saying that this issue is not replicated.

@lynnjat7 please need your input here. And please if you can try to explain other team members about the issue here. That would be really great.

[vikrampm1]

@develper1122 just an update that we are currently looking into this and discussing possible solutions. I will keep everyone posted once we have a solution in place and a PR is up.