Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Check out Google Checkout [wow thats sounding rhyming]

Well theres been a lot of talk about Google checkout that it'll check mate Papal and and shopping carts n all.... So I thought let me dive in and test the waters myself....

I ain't no expert on payment platforms anyways but since I have donned that Hat.. so what the heck..

Anyways its a neat move by google to capture shopping markets.
Paypal now got a big rival one that doesnt really have nothing to loose (well maybe some reputation), but for me google has more change to succed and climb higher than paypal becuase of their investment on this type of systems. Google has alot of money to spend and he is not afraid to do that.



Anyways I thought the best way to write about it is with analysis kinda thingie since I'm a marketing/ web Business analyst :-]

Info/ Pros
  • Google checkout seems to be just like paypal, they had said they will use his platform as a base for their program. Its just that if you have checked in once, then its more user friendly and less forms. This calls for better usability which is their USP.
  • So far, it looks like this: Your uses add items to your cart and when they are ready to check out, they are taken to google to fill out their credit card info.
  • I'm wondering if google has a way to register with google checkout on your own site and process it all server-to-server (php curl, specifically), like my current method of processing credit cards (authorize.net).
  • For those who don't have any shopping cart, you can integrate with Google Checkout using “Buy Now” buttons. Simply add our HTML code to your website to display these buttons near the products you're selling. Buyers who click these buttons will be brought to a secure Google Checkout page where they can complete their purchase.
  • Problem with paypal was that we need to have analytics to track sales and conversions based on payment methods. Using checkout and our adwords account we could track what keywords=google checkout conversions
    If you spend enough on adwords then we could get almost all of our google checkout revenue processed for free. Thats a big incentive compared to paying 2-3% for major credit cards. 3% on $300k is a nice handful of money that would end up in our pockets
  • Google Checkout has been designed to simplify and streamline business-to-consumer e-commerce transactions by letting buyers store their purchasing information with Google. That way, users can store contact details, payment preferences and shipping information once, instead of having to enter that information separately with multiple merchants.
Cons
  • For the first time a google product came without a beta version. Thats scary enough for my money to be thrown into an un-tested payment system.
  • On another point, Google Checkout is pretty bad at this time. They do not support any realtime shipping rates, no shipping API rates, no coupons, no gift certificates, nor any tax rates you have setup in your regular e-commerce platform.
  • The problem with implementing Google Checkout on a complex site is meshing their API with your site (only if you want a shopping cart). For instance, the buyer is checking out with Google Checkout and changes the shipping address to a new address. Your site has to get the new address from Google checkout, query UPS (if that's how you get your shipping charges) for updated shipping charges, update the cart on your site, then send the new cart data back to Google checkout - all on the fly. Think that's easy? no!
  • A simple “buy now” button can be incorporated by using the simple cut and paste HTML on every product page and but telling the customer that they can buy only a single product using with Google checkout would sound stupid if we are a multiple product ecommerce site.
  • Among the problems already mentioned with integrating it with your existing cart software, it doesn't handle phone orders. If you have a significant percentage of shoppers who will not enter any info online and prefer to call in an order, then there is no way.
Bottomline:
One angle is that- All big stores will make themselves compliant for sure then why miss out. Also, The simple “Buy Now” button can be used by pasting simple HTML on the site Where we dont need shopping carts But...


Google checkout has a long way to go. Right now there are too many doubts. If Google can match paypal and better it, then bang on they deserve to overthrow the current standard of Payment Checkout, and I've no doubt they will. Though it sounds much user friendly and supposedly much “safer”, right now I would actually wait a couple of months to take a call on it before referring it to anyone