wayzel - 7:11 pm on Apr 21, 2007 (gmt 0)

We added Google Checkout about 3 months ago via the API custom shopping cart method. Integration was really complicated, taking about 8 hours of "smart coder" time.

Pros (in order of financial significance)
1. adwords CTR up, CPC down. This makes a sizeable difference over time, but only if you spend a lot of money on Adwords campaigns.
2. save 2.5 to 4% compared to processing through your merchant account.
3. About 6% of customers opt for it on their first purchase.

Downsides:
1. Google's checkout page is not as streamlined as our own.
2. Lots of customer confusion. We hear back from customers who don't even realize they are using a Google service, or what they just signed up for. Basically a lot of people on the Internet still don't know what's going on out there!
3. I do not think it brings in new, incremental sales that would otherwise have been lost by not offering Google Checkout. It is a new thing, and isn't what customers are "seeking out" as their preferred or only method of doing business. Paypal, on the other hand, has this in its favor.

Lastly, we found Google Checkout's customer service to be threatening and or paranoid on multiple occasions. For example, we thought that every merchant gets to post the "$10 off your first order" promo that all the early launchers were promoting, so we went ahead and promoted the same thing. We received a somewhat rude "you weren't invited to offer this promo, so remove this promo or your membership will be terminated" email from the Google Checkout team after a customer wondered where their discount was and called Google to find out. Google basically said, "pay this customer the $10 you promised them, and remove the promo our you are out of the program." It was more the wording than the message itself that we found to be insulting. I mean, jeez, sorry, we didn't know, and how do we get invited to be a part of the buzz anyway? After putting so much effort (and expense) into integration, rollout, and customer education, that was a huge turn-off to us. It was almost like "Google is doing you a favor, not the other way around." Sorry, but that's just not the way it works, Google - you are in this business to make money, and we, the merchants, are your customers that enable you to do that. We spend the advertising money and the integration time to make your offerings catch on in the marketplace.

Later, we asked them how to be included in the list of merchants that accept Google Checkout. They provided us with a laundry list of "suggestions" that would "improve our chances of being listed." All of the suggestions basically revolved around "showing off Google Checkout" like making the Google button as big or bigger than your normal checkout button, paste messaging on your homepage, etc. We did all of these things, and 8 weeks later, are still not listed on the list of merchants that accept Google Checkout, despite following up about this matter with them.

On another instance, I was using my own credit card to test the Google implementation about 8 times over the course of about 4 days, using fictitious emails (myname1, myname2, myname3, etc.) along the way. We received a paranoid email from Google warning us that everyone using Google Checkout must create their own Google account, and that you can't process offline orders through 1 checkout account, or something like that. It was confusing and strange, almost like we were being watched 'too closely' and too early on in the game. I'd much rather feel like its not Google's business whose money is flowing through their system, as long as it isn't fraud or illegal.