Google Checkout is now live

and merchants don't get customer email addresses or cc info

[robsnell]

Google Checkout is now live and I just signed up. Hey! I wonder if Google Checkout will work with all my Yahoo! Stores?

[checkout.google.com...]

A few things I noticed while signing up:

At first blush, it looks a whole lot more like the back end of Yahoo! Store than like PayPal (to me), but I don't use PayPal as a merchant bank.

Last month's AdWords spend defrays your credit card percentage on GC orders, so it's like getting a 20% rebate on your advertising.

The Google Checkout ICON will appear by your Google AdWords ad, not your organic search, which separates editorial from advertising.

Your customers' credit card statements will show the charge from Google + {Your Business Name}.

Merchants have to post shipping and returns policies as well as URLS to your FAQ and policy pages on your own Google Checkout pages.

Google doesn't share customer info (email / credit card numbers) with the merchant so shoppers may feel more comfortable shopping online.

There are all kinds of links to things like the HELP section and a GOOGLE GROUPS that don't work quite yet, but I'll poke around a bit more and see what I can see.

More in a bit. Things just got a whole bunch more interesting in E-commerce-ville, folks!

Rob Snell
(Somewhere in rural Mississippi)

[iloveu]

I definately want to use Google Checkout as another payment choice for our customers besides PayPal and regular credit card payment. But we have a big problem here: our site and shopping card are programmed by classic ASP, we won't use "Buy Now" button, we will use Google Checkout API to integrate with our own shopping cart. Base on google's documentation, we need to install GCrypt.g_crypt.2. ActiveX Com object on the server to encode strings and generate HMAC-SHA1 signatures. We use sharing hosting service right now and have no way to install anything on the server. How should we figure out this problem? Actually, we have been trying our best to avoid any API which needs to install special software all the time.

[joestern]

You can cancel in their interface if you think the order is fraud - they have that option.

[joestern]

Their servers are amazingly slow - we can't process orders or anything.

Either they far underestimated the amount of companies that would sign up and begin processing, or they were really unprepared to launch here.

[ecommerceprofit]

Can we opt out of Google reviews? Reviews seem to be tied to the new payment system. We really want to use the new Google payment system but we stick up for ourselves when it comes to customers who go "psycho" on us. No...we don't hate customers - most of the time - 95% of the time they are right but 5% of customers try to walk all over us and get stuff for free - when we stand our ground they go to the BBB or write reviews on the net. We have considered giving in everytime but have decided not to do this - so we keep off sites that have mandatory reviews.

Anyway, is there a way to opt out of reviews?

[joestern]

I'm with this poster 110%. There's a line, and it's generally when the pedantic customer says "Have you ever heard the saying: 'The customer is always right?'" It's always downhill from there.

That said, the vast majority (well over 95%) of our customers are extremely nice and curteous, and go so far as to call back to right their wrongs. People out there are generally good, so lets not forget that amid those very, very few bad apples.

[wildbest]

Either they far underestimated the amount of companies that would sign up and begin processing, or they were really unprepared to launch here.

This happens over and over again... It was the same story with Gmail, Analytics... and invitations were introdused. So, it must already be a part of their marketing strategy I guess.

[fearlessrick]

Just to update, the Google Checkout API Support Team responded to my emails and admitted a bug in the system which they "hope to have fixed as soon as possible."

I believe anyone who was in the Google Payments BETA and had a merchant account approved may be having the same problems as I am.

I tried to sign up using my regular Google username and password - using Netscape, Mozilla, IE AND Opera browsers - and each one resulting in getting an error page. I thought it was me and my use of older browsers, but G affirms it is them.

They tell me I can sign up for a new checkout account with a new user ID in the meantime.

Since I don't want to do that (I already have too many IDs, passwords, etc.), so I'll wait and see how long it takes them to fix the bug. I asked them to port me over, since they already have the info (bank acct., etc.) but they decline to do that.

I'm just happy to report that it's their problem, not me, but I am not holding my breath waiting for the "fix."

I'll update this sad saga as events allow. My prediciton: They won't fix it this year. (this is from experience with other hotshot high tech outfits, particularly ebay, who promised a bulk auction tool for Mac users in 1999. To date, it is still unavailable)

Happy independence weekend!

[joestern]

I haven't been able to get into the site all weekend. I keep getting the "Oops" message. And I have orders to ship, supposedly.

Of course, Google is closed today, and if I don't charge within 72 hours, a whole different set of rules applies. So the orders from late Friday? I'm toast.

[tootalldave]

It seems to be working now.
Our company will save quite a bit in credit card processing fees since we are AdWords advertisers.

We're planning on using mals-e.com for our cart to link up to Google Checkout, mals is in the process of adding google as a feature, I would imagine most 3rd party carts are going to add Google.

I was not a big Adwords fan as we had a terrible conversion ratio, but after visting this forum we did a lot of tweaking to our website an increased our conversion from less then 1 in 500 to 1 in 40 customers purchase.

Thanks to all the contributors at Webmasterworld!

[fearlessrick]

I also will integrate with Mal's (the BEST!) when Google fixes their bug... sometime in 2008, I suspect. Still unable to sign up or use my previously-approved Merchant Account.

The worst thing about this "bug" is that it's not my Mac, not my old OS, not any of the four browsers I use. No, it's because I particiapated in Google Payments beta in Google Base.

Veeeeeeeeeeery annOOOOOOOOOOOOOying Goooooooooogle.

[willie1]

I'm thinking seriously about [e-path.com.au...] and their reseller thing. This would mean I would be my own payment gateway and could offer it to my clients and charge them my own fees. I could be a competitor to Google check out!
I am trying to find out if there are any others doing this with e-Path. Seems an awesone idea, any thoughts?!?