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Rodney · June 30th, 2006

Looks like Google has officially launched their Google Checkout service. This appears to be a direct competitor to PayPal, with some interesting features (especially for merchants like us).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Google Checkout


	Process sales for free. For every $1 you spend on AdWords, you can process $10 in sales for free. For sales that exceed this amount or if you don't use AdWords, you can process them at a low 2% and $0.20 per transaction.

I just signed up for an account there to accept payments and it was pretty painless. Google does ask you for your Federal Tax ID or Social, but other than that, it's a pretty quick application.

You can add Google "Buy Now" buttons to your website:

They have also partnered with a few shopping carts to have automatic integration (none of the free ones unfortunately).

They also have an API for those programmer geeks out there to integrate into just about any cart

This could be a good way for people who want to accept credit cards, but don't have a merchant account (and want an alternative to PayPal) to get started selling. They even use "t-shirts" as their example buy now button

One of the first things I purchased (on the consumer side of Google Checkout) was a t-shirt from t-shirts.com. The process was very similar to PayPal, except that there were more updates about the status of the order.

Definitely worth "checking out":
https://checkout.google.com

dub3325 · June 30th, 2006

wow, awesome rodney, thanks for posting. I'll have to look into it.

jdr8271 · June 30th, 2006

I think this is one area where google can't compete. Im sure if google made it, it will be aawesome, but paypals got ebay.

Also, alot of people have money sitting in their paypal accounts that they want to spend. By using google checkout, you could loose those customers.

I have personally never had a problem with paypal

Solmu · June 30th, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdr8271


	I think this is one area where google can't compete. Im sure if google made it, it will be aawesome, but paypals got ebay.

On the other hand Google has Google

I think they're in with a chance. They're cheaper, PayPal is evil, and Google isn't. It's not an easy market, but we're talking clash of titans stuff here.

monkeylantern · June 30th, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdr8271


	Also, alot of people have money sitting in their paypal accounts that they want to spend. By using google checkout, you could loose those customers.

Never leave money in your Paypal account! They are not a bank! That money has zero legal protection (you have, in essence, given it to them to do with as they wish, which may not include giving it back to you).

Paypal is great in terms of a service (albeit evil ethically). But they are not under any watch dog.

re google, I was reading about this last week. It looks very interesting (I presume we all subscribe to www.auctionbytes.com newsletter?). Combining advertising and processing costs is ingenious. I have great hopes.

Does it work like Paypal in that a customer can just enter their details as with any merchant account website sale, as opposed to having to open a Google account?

ShirtHappens · June 30th, 2006

Couple days ago i read on another board something similar that paypal uses peoples unused money to pay people when they have bad transactiona or something like that, dont quite remember, dont know if its true but reading that they can do what they wish with your money then it could be true.

lawaughn · July 1st, 2006

Great link Rodney.

identityburn · July 1st, 2006

Yeah I read about this the other day. I'll probably stick to paypal for now unless this proves to be much better. I'll check it out.

teestyle · July 1st, 2006

It's a pretty staggering release for Google. The number of merchants and payment processors they've already lined up is quite impressive.

If they improve on the shipping and sales tax pieces in the back-end, it'll be bliss.

In the meantime, what I'd really love to see is Printmojo, CafePress and Spreadshirt all adopting this, so that I could consolidate all my products in a single simple storefront. I actually might create a Google Checkout shop for my Spreadshirt stuff in the meantime and just drop ship products to the buyers.

Rodney · July 5th, 2006

I don't think you have to do an either/or Google/PayPal.

But offering Google as a payment option in addition to PayPal can help you convert those shoppers that do not want to use PayPal for whatever reason.

Google is a much larger company with a stronger overall brand (how many times in tv/movies do you hear people "googling" something? How many times do you hear people in offline media talking about PayPaling something?).

It couldn't hurt to have a payment solution with such a strong internet brand.

I wouldn't give up PayPal though. I've used them since they were x.com and haven't had problems.

normsbrand · August 2nd, 2006

I wonder if you use google, if it would help get your stuff ranked higher on their search engines.

just a thought.

Rodney · August 2nd, 2006

Quote:


	I wonder if you use google, if it would help get your stuff ranked higher on their search engines.

I don't think you will rank higher, but if you use Google Adwords to advertise your ecommerce site through Google, you get a little shopping cart (Google Checkout) icon next to your listing which can help your ad stand out over others.

I was just about to do some testing today to use it on one of my shops, but it looks like I'll have to make changes to the way I handle sales tax to make it work with my shopping cart.

Twinge · August 27th, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by normsbrand


	I wonder if you use google, if it would help get your stuff ranked higher on their search engines.

It absolutely should NOT affect how you actually rank with Google; that'd be really against what Google tries/claims to stand for.

Quote:

Originally Posted by monkeylantern


	Does it work like Paypal in that a customer can just enter their details as with any merchant account website sale, as opposed to having to open a Google account?

Unfortunately, it appears that they will NOT offer that. If they did, I'd likely switch to them full-force and drop Paypal completely. Here's a quote from the Checkout info strongly implying that users will have to have a Google account:

Quote:

Originally Posted by checkout.google.com


	Lengthy checkout processes frustrate online shoppers who then frequently abandon their shopping carts. When your store accepts Google Checkout, your customers needn't be among them. The purchasing information of every Checkout user is stored in a single account, so they can buy from you by simply providing their username and password.

So, I'll probably stick with Paypal for now, and possibly add Checkout as an alternative option when there is a free pugin for zencart to integrate it (full integration, so it works with the databases and such).

m4nti · August 28th, 2006

Of course there's also another problem I always encounter (and I mean always).

It's the fact that I live in Malta. PayPal like a million others doesn't send payment to this god-forsaken island, which means I can never do business with PayPal (unless of course I want to keep my money in a paypal account -- which I don't). So if google checkout will send cheques to people living in Malta and those that live in the 'banned' (kinda) list of PayPal cheque-sending it will definitely help it (google checkout) gain popularity!

=)

Twinge · August 28th, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by m4nti


	Of course there's also another problem I always encounter (and I mean always). It's the fact that I live in Malta. PayPal like a million others doesn't send payment to this god-forsaken island, which means I can never do business with PayPal (unless of course I want to keep my money in a paypal account -- which I don't). So if google checkout will send cheques to people living in Malta and those that live in the 'banned' (kinda) list of PayPal cheque-sending it will definitely help it (google checkout) gain popularity!

Hehe. Well, Checkout is only for the US right now, but that's how Google usually does things - in stages, gradually improving them over time. They'll surely add support for Germany & the UK soon at least. Malta probably isn't on their 'high priority list', but they might add it eventually.

I don't believe most people usually have Paypal send them checks anyway though - they usually do direct transfer into a bank account.

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