Google Launches PayPal Rival

Google Checkout Launched

Roy van Rijn informs us that Google's new online payment system is now online. "Under the name Checkout, the venture offers an incorporated manner to search, advertise and pay. If you buy something on Checkout, 2% and $0.20 go to Google. Paypal, the biggest competitor uses 1,9% and $0,30. Analysts compare Google/Paypal to for example Visa/Mastercard living peacefully together, while others predict the end of Paypal." W3K adds "You can use your Google account to store an unlimited number of credit cards and addresses. The service allows you to track all your orders and shipping in one place," and adds a link to a quick video tour.

End of Paypal ?

[DrSkwid]

Yeah, I'm sure eBay will let that happen.

Re:End of Paypal ?

[grazzy]

I'm not sure gBay agrees.

Re:End of Paypal ?

[CastrTroy]

Just like GMail meant the end of Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, and the myriad of other online mail services. And how Google Maps meant the end of Mapquest andd MS Maps (??). I know that Google has created some welcome competition to many online services, forcing them to improve their offerings, but it hasn't completely killed the competition. Most people I know haven't switched from their current providers. However, I'm sure they would have if Hotmail stuck to 2MB, and Mapquest didn't touch their interface. I'm happy google's here, because it makes everyone else have to try harder. Let's hope the same happens to E-Bay. They haven't changed their interface since their inception.

Re:End of Paypal ?

[WindBourne]

Well, killing an email service is very difficult. Nobody wants to go through the hassle of sending a new e-mail address to everybody they know. So it is expecte that there would be a very slow change on this front.

But changing their mapping service as well as who they pay through, that is a whole other issue. Mapquest and MSN maps have been losing business. In light of the continual growth of the net, that is very telling. I would guess that Google is not going to kill off paypal tomorrow or over the next 10 years. But I would also bet that paypal will lose more than half of their business within five years and continue a downward trend unless they make a major change. Since ebay has taken over paypal, they have abused stores as well as users. Their attitude may start to change back to what it was.

Re:End of Paypal ?

[kabocox]

Since ebay has taken over paypal, they have abused stores as well as users. Their attitude may start to change back to what it was.

I'm confused why people ever really use PayPal in the first place. Oh yes because it's "easy." I wouldn't mind Google, MS, or heck even SGI to go into this. My thing is that they should start off as declaring themselves as doing banking and being properly regulated. I want PayPal to die a swift death just because of that. PayPal is doing banking and should be regulated as such. I honestly think that MS, Google, or some other IT company should produce a set of software that makes it as easy as using PayPal for your existing bank to do business over the internet. The big PayPal killer will be when my 4+ local city banks can do business with each other and your local banks as easily as PayPal transactions happen.

Re:End of Paypal ?

[Khuffie]

In Canada, you can send money through your bank accounts via email, as long as both of you have access to your bank's online banking. Unfortunately it's something not many people know about.

Re:End of Paypal ?

[sshore]

In Canada, you can send money through your bank accounts via email, as long as both of you have access to your bank's online banking. Unfortunately it's something not many people know about.

It's several dollars per transaction, and it's not offered by all banks. It's no replacement for Paypal et al.

Re:End of Paypal ?

[TheRaven64]

The thing people like about PayPal is it lets you pay with a credit card. If I buy something using PayPal with a credit card and I don't receive it then one email to my credit card company will see the money returned. I could just as easily send money from my Internet banking site, but then I don't get the buyer protection.

The US, sadly, has one of the most backwards banking systems I have ever had the misfortune to do business with. Most US banks seem to regard sending money by telegraph as a horrible new-fangled concept, while banks in the EU and Japan have been allowing customers to do it for free for well over a decade. I have two UK bank accounts and one US account. The amount of stuff the US bank seems to think they can get away with charging me for is staggering; they even charge for doing a balance enquiry at a cash machine!

Re:End of Paypal ?

[TasteeWheat]

The thing people like about PayPal is it lets you pay with a credit card. If I buy something using PayPal with a credit card and I don't receive it then one email to my credit card company will see the money returned.

Sure, you can do that, but then you'll get screwed by Paypal. I had an issue where the seller never shipped the item to me, and I first went through Paypal's dispute option in order to get my money back. However, they were either unable or unwilling to give me a refund, so I disputed the charge with my credit card company. Once Paypal got the chargeback, they permanently froze my service until I paid THEM the amount of my chargeback. Give money back to Paypal for an item I never received, and had just disputed? I don't think so. Needless to say, I haven't used them since (nor will I ever).

Re:End of Paypal ?

[Bob Gelumph]

In Australia, they charge you for typing a PIN incorrectly.

They had to dig deep for this charge as they have already been charging for everything else for years.

Re:End of Paypal ?

[RDW]

The problem is that in at least some countries this only applies until you reach your lifetime 'sending limit' (read the small print). Once this limit is reached (I think this is $2000 in the US, but only £500 at most in the UK) you have to give PayPal direct access to a bank account, losing the 'insulation' provided by your credit card. This is the thing I hate most about PayPal, and they aren't exactly up-front about it either (the help information about account 'verification' just has some vague la

Your wrong about why...

[Serapth]

Paypal isnt so much the most popular service because it's "easy"

Many other services are just as easy to use as Paypal. No the biggest reasons are:
- Its "the brand" so far as online payments go. Most people use paypal, so other people get brought in my default.
- Its trusted. For online payments, this is a HUGE deal.
- Its cheap. Really, look at what people have to pay for online banking. If you want to setup an e-commerce website, alot of payment gateways charge a monthly fee, then take a huge percentage of your revinue. Plus, payout rates ( how fast you get your cash )are much higher with Paypal then most gateways.
- It acts as a credit card proxy, so if you have a MC or Visa, you can pay with Paypal without the fear of giving out your credit card number.
- Its in bed with eBay. Alot of peoples first need for a payment service is because they bought something on eBay. Once they have an eBay account, if they buy something else online, why sign up for a different service when the one you use already works?

So, there are many reasons beyond "it's easy" that Paypal is popular.

Use one of the online gold repositories instead

[Colin Smith]

People use PayPal because Ebay demand that they do. Crucially paypal means that you don't have to give bank details to customers/suppliers.

There's e-gold [e-gold.com], GoldMoney [goldmoney.com] etc. They're basically banks, can do instant payments. The difference being you can actually get your hands on the gold.

 

Re:End of Paypal ?

[WindBourne]

Well, I would be shocked if any of them die. Just because they are losing business does not mean that either is in danger of dieing. The problem is that they did not improve. Of course, now that MS live is out and with a similiar interface to Google, it will probably gain some traction. As to the interstate exit numbers, please send in a request. I no longer own (and very rarely use) a printer, so I have never noticed that. That would be helpful.

Re:End of Paypal ?

[grapeape]

Big difference between paypal vs google and the competing mail services. People have had a choice for years. No one complains about free email its reliable, its there, its ubiquitous. What irritates people with Paypal is the rather random enforcement of buyer and seller protection coupled with their stranglehold on ebay that pretty much makes any other method of payment impossible. After paying listing fees, final value fees, paypal fees, extra paypal fees if you want to be able to take credit cards, and dealing with buyers protection which is in my experience used in scam attempts as much as in real disputes, the ebay/paypal racket is hardly a bargain.

After all that, I still use it on occasion because I have no choice, thats the difference.

Re:End of Paypal ?

[CastrTroy]

Everybody had a problem with Hotmail before GMail came around. But they thought it was the only service available, and they needed the account anyway to use MSN (I know you can sign up for MSN with another email address, but it's really hard to find that site). Hotmail still has terrible spam filtration (blacklisting everyone except your contacts is not spam filtration), and thankfully, they've gone up from their original 2MB of storage. People used Hotmail because it was there, but I don't think that many people liked it. They were all looking for a change, but It's hard to switch email addresses.

Sellers will prefer PayPal to Google Checkout

[turnstyle]

Google Checkout lets buyers hide their email addresses from sellers -- but, it seems fair that sellers should get buyers' email addresses (PayPal doesn't similarly hide emails).

It also seems like hiding the email address from the seller may also encourage more fraud (especially for digially distributed works).

So, at first glance, Google Checkout seems worse than PayPal from the seller's perspective -- it'll be interesting to see if sellers choose to stick with PayPal for reasons such as these...

Re:Sellers will prefer PayPal to Google Checkout

[IAmTheDave]

So, at first glance, Google Checkout seems worse than PayPal from the seller's perspective

Actually, I'm inclined to disagree. There is a full API, and you can practically (as a seller) hide the fact you're using Google to process payments from the user if you wish. I'm writing an online store right now, and integration with Google appears to be less costly than having to get a merchant bank account and integrate with annoying APIs like Paymentech.

I like that Google placed the service on both a Paypal and full-out merchant level. Now I can do all payment processing on my site via the available web API, but still put the Google badge on the site to put buyers at ease.

Re:End of Paypal ?

[hlh_nospam]

There's nothing wrong with either Ebay or PayPal... that a dose of viable competition wouldn't cure in a heartbeat. PayPal has pissed off enough people that CheckOut is virtually guaranteed to be an immediate success, but probably won't kill PayPal immediately. PayPal will simply clean up its act, which is long overdue. (Thanks, Google!!) As for ebay, they are on the downhill slide anyway. They have grown too big to effectively manage, they have become a fraud magnet, and they are chasing a business model that has some curious shortcomings (most of what is currently sold on Ebay is not really well-suited to the auction format). A combination of GoogleBase and CheckOut will eventually reduce ebay to a footnote in internet history (Something along the lines of, "For those of you that don't remember Ebay, it was once the largest auction/ecommerce site by a factor of more than 10").

I will be checking out the new CheckOut, with some initial testing in my violin business [celtic-fiddler.com], and if the results are good, I may move all of my business away from Ebay.

Re:End of Paypal ?

[identity0]

I once heard a joke about how, "One day, you'll drive your Sony to the Sony to buy more Sony for your Sony".

We need a new one that goes, "One day, you'll Google for some more Google for your Google, and pay Google with Google"

Re:End of Paypal ?

[tomhudson]

The difference between 1.9% + 30 cents (ebay) and 2.0% + 20 cents (google) might not strike you as significant, but google now works out to be cheaper for all sales under $100.00

Don't think that the "ebay power sellers" aren't keenly aware of the difference. They know how ebay nickel-and-dimes them to death, and if they can save a few dollars a week AND stick it to ebay, they will.

Example - item at $10.00

eBay: 49 cents, google:40 cents. Difference: 9 cents.

Do 100/week, and over the course of a year you're looking at $468.00 in savings ...

Re:End of Paypal ?

[Andrew Nagy]

For the record, if you (the seller) advertises on Adwords, they give you $10 free transactions for every $1 you spend in Adwords advertising. So if you spend $500 a day on advertising costs, they allow $5,000 worth of sales go through for free.

Re:End of Paypal ?

[mishkon]

Paypal is NOT 1.9%. It is likely to be around 2.5% (over $3k in sales a month) or 2.2% (over 10k in sales) dpending on volume. many paypal uses pay around 3%. Google being 2% regardless of volume, makes it significantly cheaper then paypal for most sellers.

Re:End of Paypal ?

[tomhudson]

You, like some other posters, seem to think that PayPal's prices are fixed in stone forever.

Don't put words in my mouth - I never said that. Here's the reality ...

1. finally, paypal has some real competition
2. a lot of people would pay more to switch from paypal
3. this will shrink ebay's customer base no matter what, so they're going to be hit with both lower demand and lower prices
4. for google, on the other hand, their market share can only grow - and they've got tie-ins to a lot more stuff than ebay

Then there's the whole regulatory issue - ebay has had to make deals with regulators in almost 20 states ... google will just go out and BUY a bank. Then they'll issue their own credit cards, etc.

NYT article

[ems2]

NYT times [nytimes.com] also has a interesting article on this with quotes about Google's plans on what they want to do with this product.

Re:NYT article

[novus ordo]

"The goal here is to make it be one nanosecond from the time the customer decides to buy to the time the transaction is complete and the product is on the way," Mr. Schmidt said.

Impulsive shopping here we come!

Re:NYT article

[sootman]

One nanosecond? But I want it NOW!

Re:NYT article

[NatasRevol]

"Wright 5 dollars"

Does it have an old plane as the background image??

Re:NYT article

[Paradise Pete]

Face it, our lives are for the most part not like that of James Bond. We're dull.

Sure, you're dull right up until the moment you're not. And then you're defenseless. There is an old saying in Chess - the threat is better than the execution. Meaning that as long as your opponent has the power to do something, you have to expend your efforts in worrying about it and preventing it rather than doing what you'd like to do. If all of your "secrets" are laid bare at the whim of someone in power then you are oppr

paypal's safe as long as it has a monopoly at eBay

[joe545]

No matter how much I dislike PayPal, I'm forced to use it if I want to buy something from eBay. Until GoogleCheckout tries to break PayPal's monopoly at eBay (it surely can't be legal) I can't see the demise of PayPal happening. This isn't the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning.

monopoly at eBay

[giorgiofr]

Monopoly? I can accept payments in about 3615 different ways on eBay. What are you talking about?

Re:monopoly at eBay

[Anonymous Coward]

Name 412 of them.

Re:monopoly at eBay

[andrewman327]

Most people have no idea what a money order is, although they are sometimes the best means of paying on EBay and cost less than . People seem to think that they can only pay through PayPal.

Re:monopoly at eBay

[SYRanger]

I bet you don't accept African Express.

Re:paypal's safe as long as it has a monopoly at e

[Threni]

> No matter how much I dislike PayPal, I'm forced to use it if I want to buy something from eBay

I think, with this and other online payment systems, you won't actually need to use eBay for much longer. The combination of eBays shocking lack of regard for blatant scams, their stock - ineffectual and often incorrect or irrelevant - replies to complaints, and the way they push their inherently unsafe PayPal* system has put me off using them.

*When is the money mine? As a seller I mean? For how long afterwar

Re:paypal's safe as long as it has a monopoly at e

[The Cisco Kid]

You are not forced to use Paypal to pay for eBay auctions. Each seller, for each item they list, can choose what payment methods they accept. Some accept PayPal, some don't. Some accept only PayPal. Some will accept Money orders. Even for sellers that only accept PayPal, you can usually pay them through PayPal using your CC without creating a PayPal account - in effect just making PayPal their CC processor.

Good for the customers

[BigDuke6_swe]

Let's hope there won't be a need to create more sites like this, http://www.paypalsucks.com/ [paypalsucks.com]. Because Paypal works pretty good and what seems to be what people complain the most about is the poor handling of fraud and disputes.

So if they want to be banks...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Personally, you won't find me going near most of the services offered by the likes of Paypal and now Google until organisations that are acting like banks or credit companies are regulated like them as well. My high street bank and credit card have pretty crappy customer service at times, but compared to some of the things Paypal's been accused off, the other guys are saints.

Re:So if they want to be banks...

[Dun Malg]

Question I've been meaning to ask: are debit cards as risky? I'm sure I read somewhere that you can't do chargebacks with them.

Ten years ago, when electronic debit transactions were still new, that was the case. Now most financial institutions offer protections similar to credit cards. That's not to say that debit card protection is as convenient as credit card protection, though. The disadvantage is that, unlike a straight credit card, you start off with the money gone and must wrangle with the bank to

Money transfers?

[Poromenos1]

My biggest question is if I can use my checkout funds to pay for stuff. I live in Greece, so I can't withdraw PayPal funds (cheaply, anyway), but I can use it to pay for my hosting/online shopping. If I can't do this with Google Checkout, it's all but useless to me.

Re:Money transfers?

[mgblst]

Larry Page: Alright everybody, I have some bad news for you.
Staff: What is it Larry?
Larry: Apparently the new Gpay system is no good to some guy in Greece, so scrap it.
Staff: Oh no, all that work for nothing.
Larry: Yeah, I know, but what can you do. Guys, I am heading back to the Garage.

Just kidding, really, your opinion is important to us!

Re:Money transfers?

[Poromenos1]

Learn the difference between "Gpay is useless" and "Gpay is useless to me". I would pay for your English lessons, if I could use Gpay to transfer funds from Greece.

Re:Money transfers?

[Ilgaz]

Recently stuff offered to USA and Canada only has started bothering people as they see it as a way of "We don't give a f to you" attitude.

For example I know it is not only Apple to blame but iTunes Greece store existing and there is no iTunes Turkey store while countries has similar markets (wonder where enemy brothers term come from?) makes you think like "Oh well, Apple doesn't give a heck to our country" and get eMusic.com subscription.

Same goes for Rhapsody of Real Networks.; You see story on Slashdot, immediately click the URL with a list of rare stuff you have in your mind, you see "Available to USA only". It is like you go to a store and a bodyguard pushes you out because where you live.

I hope I could explain the background of "Why not available to my country?!" types of postings a bit.

btw, I know it is RIAA to blame for those "music" stores.

US Only

[ggeens]

The registration form lets you choose a country, but the terms and conditions state that you must be a US citizen. I didn't click on the "I agree" button.

Flashback to the early days of Paypal: Someone pointed me to this new service, and when I get to the registration form, it had "Country: USA" hard coded in the HTML.

Credit Card Replacement?

[the_unknown_soldier]

I watched the video.. didn't RTFA though. Does anyone think this it is weird that google is advertising this as a replacement for credit cards?

Paypal markets itself as a "safe" alternative for things like ebay, and easier to use for things like donations and small online stores that might not be able to use credit card facilities. Yet google is advertising this as a replacement for credit cards on all of your purchases. Would you be prepared to pay 2% on every single purchase you made at an online store ju

Customers DON'T pay...

[jsharkey]

Would you be prepared to pay 2% on every single purchase you made at an online store just so you don't have to "fill out forms"?

Remember, the $0.20 + 2% is paid by the seller and is taken out of the actual price. Consumers will see no price difference.

Re:Customers DON'T pay...

[BigDogCH]

Which isn't any different than credit cards right? Does anyone know what Visa and the others charge for their service?

Re:Customers DON'T pay...

[Fnord666]

Does anyone know what Visa and the others charge for their service?

The amount charged to merchants for a sale varies greatly depending on the agreement between the merchant and the card processor. Factors can include the number of monthly transactions, total monthly dollar amount, number of chargebacks, swiped vs. manually entered transactions, etc. In general the google figure is probably in line or a bit lower than what most small business merchants are charged per transaction.

The interesting things will be how chargebacks are handled, what fraud prevention measures are in place, and who eats the cost of fraud. With a credit card I get a lot of protection and infrastructure that handles all of this. Google will have to at least match this before I will consider using it.

Personally I still don't know how Paypal manages to avoid being classified as a bank by the government.

Re:Customers DON'T pay...

[Zaphod2016]

As a frame of reference: I was charged $0.25 + 2.25% for Visa/MC transactions. Merchants with higher volume can save money over PayPal, but for small fries like me I saw no competitve advantage in keeping a "regular" merchant account (especially after you factor in a monthly fee of ~$25).

I heard many horror stories about PayPal, but so far they've been good to me. And considering the total lack of customer support I got from the "real bank", the support factor was moot (IMO).

The economics of it

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Who pays depends on the slope of the demand curve, which is a fancy way of saying whether the merchants can raise prices without losing business.

Put a 50% tax on scrub brushes, and the price won't go up because no seller would risk having all his customers buy mops instead. Put a 50% tax on gasoline, and the sellers will cheerfully pass it along in full.

In general the burden of a tax gets split between seller and buyer in a ratio that depends on how much the market will bear.

Ebay?

[dohcvtec]

So, can it be used as a method of payment for Ebay auctions and other person-to-person transactions?

And...

I don't think PayPal will be going away anytime soon. PayPal's business is driven by Ebay, and PayPal is part of Ebay.

Hooray!

[chrismcdirty]

Now Google can keep all of my credit cards on file for me! Maybe the NSA should contract them for a new domestic spying program.

New Revenue Streams Trend to Conservatism

[kthejoker]

I think the most important thing about this entire endeavor is that it is the first Google product that plans on actually introducing a revenue stream besides advertising to the company (especially since the Google Pay Video system has more or less fell through at this point in time.)

I'm not quite sure what that means for the long-term health of the company, but I suspect that the more streams of revenue a company has, the more likely they are to become conservative, entrenched, and reluctant to embrace change. Google has managed to avoid all that because they've had a strong beam focus on a single revenue stream (ad dollars) - as they start matriculating, I suspect that beam focus will dissipate.

But then again, they're Google - they just work smarter than basically every other company out there today. So I put nothing out of their reach.

Re:New Revenue Streams Trend to Conservatism

[Dannon]

How do you reach this conclusion, that many revenue streams==conservatism==entrenched attitudes?

Take the New York Times, for example. Revenue from advertising, classifieds, subscriptions, sidewalk sales, and now, subscription services on their web site.

I would also be inclined to say that they've got an "entrenched" attitude. Government regulations on the news media are just fine, even welcome, as long as they don't apply to the printing press media. Also, they managed to wrangle the NY city government into

Re:New Revenue Streams Trend to Conservatism

[Doctor Crumb]

Read their pricing scheme; sellers get free transactions if they use adwords, and the more they spend on adwords, the more free transactions they get. So, while this is definitely a new revenue stream, it is *also* a way to further bolster their main revenue stream.

Paypal has one thing on google...

[JumperCable]

4.7% interest on money contained in paypal accounts, no minimum. That's hard to beat for a pretty liquid fund of money.

Re:Paypal has one thing on google...

[Mr.123]

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/messageview.php?st art=0&catid=52&threadid=478098 [fatwallet.com] Citibank is now offering 5%. FDIC insured and will not lose value like a money market fund.

Re:Paypal has one thing on google...

[voice_of_all_reason]

Except they can confiscate your money at any time for violating their terms of service. So liquid it might just slip through your fingers...

Re:Paypal has one thing on google...

[bigbigbison]

Check out this blog Bank Deals [blogspot.com]. While a lot of the CD specials on there are for local credit unions, there are also a lot of great online bank deals. Etrade, for example, currently has 3-month CD at 4.75% [blogspot.com] and the longer-term CDs going up from there.

Even better, no minimum Savings up to 4.95%...

[Optic7]

Bankrate.com keeps track of the highest yeld savings accounts in the country [bankrate.com], along with many other rates, like mortgage, credit card, car loan, etc.

Re:Paypal has one thing on google...

[TheRaven64]

It depends where you are. In the UK, investing Pounds Sterling, it is pretty hard to get anything over 4.5%, even on a relatively long-term investment. The important thing to note here is that the rate of inflation in the UK is around 2% for 2006, while in the US it is 3.7%. This means that you need an interest rate of 3.7% on a US Dollar just for your money to be worth the same amount, while you would only need 2% if your money is in Pounds Sterling (or close to 0% if it's in Swiss Francs).

PayPal isn't going anywhere anytime soon

[Whafro]

While we all love Google and everything it produces over here on slashdot, I don't think that they are going to crash PayPal's party in the too near future.

This is what they said when Blockbuster started competing with NetFlix, but NetFlix is doing quite alright by themselves, and PayPal is, in my opinion, in better shape in their space than NetFlix was. PayPal and eBay are pretty good bed buddies, and PayPal is already accepted on thousands of other websites. People know the name, people have used it before, people know it works.

Regardless of how great the product Google produces turns out to be, people will still use PayPal as long as PayPal remains competitive, which I imagine it will. I mean, for all the people who rave and rant about how amazing Gmail is, the mailing list that my mom's quilt shop has accumulated is saturated with yahoo, hotmail, and aol addresses, with not a single gmail address to be found out of a few thousand names.

just great

[BugDoomBug]

An additional spam header coming your way

"Dear Valued Customer, In an effort to protect your security and combat identity fraud we need to periodically confirm your account activity and identity. Please click here, login using your google account information, and complete the highly detailed personalized questionaire.

Sincerely,
Not a Phishing Attempt

So anyone grab checkoutgoogle.com for this yet?

Interconnected services

[SolitaryMan]

OK, I acknoledge that I'm paranoid, but the thing that makes me nervous about google services is that thay use single account for all purposes. This not only allows to keep track of my whole life, but also allows a person, who hijacks my email account, take control over my mail, internet messenger (IM was used for several famous frauds in Russia), and now money directly!

Re:Interconnected services

[SpinyNorman]

Yeah - I don't like that my gmail password would now give someone access to my credit card if I were to sign up for Google checkout. I like to keep things more compartmentalized than that. For things like e-mail and other lower security things I use one set of passwords, but for PayPal I use a unique, much longer, and more secure one and make sure never to have my Browser store it.

Also, it's convenient to stay logged into Google for gmail, but I wouldn't want to do that at work if it gave access to my credit card! I think a seperate password, required each time you buy something, would be better than using your one password to the Googleplex.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Interconnected services

[mrchaotica]

You do if you pay attention to Google's Terms of Service.

Re:Interconnected services

[dave1212]

You know that you don't have to sign up for all these services under the same account, right?

Only if you want to be legal about it. When it comes to my cash, I prefer to do stuff above the table.

Google's TOS doesn't allow multiple accounts.

Re:Interconnected services

[Sanga]

Okay let us create an account B for GBuy; account M for GMail; account T for gtalk; O for orkut. That should work and be compartmentalised. Right?

No. Now OP receives GBuy email in B -- and has to login as B to see what is going on. Wants to hang out on orkut -- logout and login again.

Either do a lot of cookie-editor plugin dancing or just stick to having one GCompartment for all!!

Micropayments

[Threni]

> 2% and $0.20

So they didn't want to just take the 2% so it could be used by websites to charge tiny amounts of money per page/hour etc? $0.20 blows that intriguing possibility out of the water. They could accrue the amounts spent until it reached some value where the transaction was worth performing, if they're worried about thousands of $0.001 hits slowing down their system or costing too much to run.

US residents only!

[dapyx]

Has anyone noticed it's only for US residents?

By agreeing to this Terms of Service for Buyers, you represent that you are:

18 years old or older;

capable of entering into a legally binding agreement; and

a resident of the United States.

Re:US residents only!

[pcgamez]

Duh? When US based companies release a new (virtual) product, they usually test it in a single market first.

Re:US residents only!

[psycln]

Funny thing, I just signed up for checkout with my G Account and all I had to do is specify a different country.

I even tried buying something from Buy.com and got the Oops [imageshack.us] from Google.

Visa and Mastercard aren't the best examples...

[Vellmont]

I actually thought they were the same company, but apparently they just work very closely together, to the point that the US Justice Department sued them over common ownership affecting competition.

Correction.

[Funkcikle]

"The service allows you to track all your orders and shipping in one place"

Should read as:

"The service allows Google to track all your orders and shipping in one place"

Need more payment options!

[RemovableBait]

Before Google Checkout has much hope of usurping PayPal, they'll need to accept more payment options.

Paypal currently allows payment direct from a bank account (I don't expect Google to need this), Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Delta, Maestro, Visa Electron, Solo, Discover, and more if you count their other services. That's at least 10 ways to pay.

Google, on the other hand, accept Visa, Mastercard, Amex and Discover. With only 4 ways to pay, I suspect Google Checkout is not an option for many people.

Disclaimer: I live in the UK and this is based on my experience with the UK PayPal service. I also agree with the sentiments of paypalsucks.com, and would like to see Google smash PayPal to pieces if they can Do No Evil. YMMV.

Re:Need more payment options!

[Software]

I disagree. From a US perspective, Visa, Mastercard, Amex and Discover have approximately 100% penetration. OK, there's a few people (privacy nuts, mostly -- no offense) who don't have a CC, but you're far more likely to find someone without a bank account than you are to find someone without one of these credit card accounts. I've never heard of Delta, Maestro, Visa Electron, or Solo.

A bank account may be more useful for sellers (how exactly do you add money to your Visa account, anyway?), but I don't kn

more info

[feamsr00]

It would seem I wasnt fast enough to post this story, but I had a couple more links and useful info, so here it is:

Google Checkout [google.com] has been released today. From their blog: We've heard time and again from users: "I find great stores through Google search, but every time I try to buy from an online store, I have to re-enter the same billing, shipping, and credit card information. There are too many steps. Why can't it be as fast as a Google search?" This motivated us to improve the online purchase process, and so today we're announcing Google Checkout, a checkout option that makes buying across the web fast and easy."
Google CheckOut includes single signon and badges on adwords of merchants that use Google CheckOut.
Features include using many addresses and many different cards for buyers [google.com] and a "Payment Guarantee" against chargebacks for sellers [google.com].
AdWords users get $10 in sales processed for free for every $1 spent on AdWords.

For those of us text weary, there are videos for buyers [google.com] and sellers [google.com]

PayPal vs Google checkpout

[Exter-C]

I am interested to see viable alternatives to PayPal, their transaction rates are very expensive given the type and value of the transactions. I understand that every business has to make money but I am sure they would have more customers if the transaction cost where lower or had a better rate.

This would be very bad if it put PayPal out

[Geekbot]

This would be awful if it put PayPal out of business. I don't see how that could possibly happen, but all the same, it would not be good for Google.

Look what has happened to PayPal without any real competition in the game, poor service, lots of fear over how accounts are handled. I think the same thing would happen to Google without competition forcing them to be the best.

I know a lot of people are starting to fear Google. Google used to be the underdog, and people love underdogs, especially Americans and e

Differing Features

[jascat]

I didn't look into it very hard, but it seems like Paypal has same major features that Google Checkout doesn't have; direct access to bank accounts and person to person transfers. I have used direct transfers several times for transfering money between family members. We are all pretty lazy and it has become easier to use Paypal than it is to write a check and put it in the mail. Also, Paypal seems to be more convenient to the casual seller on Ebay. Also, what about the folks on sites like Rent-a-coder that like to get paid through Paypal. I can see how they would compete on the business side, but for regular joe's, Paypal is still the answer.

Google Checkout !Paypal

[d3bruts1d]

If by "Google launches PayPal Rival" you mean, "Google launches a service for merchants to process credit cards". Then yes, this is a PayPal rival. This service does not allow you to transfer money from person-to-person, nor does it allow you to pay by check, bank draft, etc.

Google - my secret lover

[Anonymous Coward]

You have my secrets.
You have my money.
But where can I upload my soul? Yes, I have googled.

Only in the USA

[Roy van Rijn]

Remember, when you sign up for Google Checkout you can fill in any country you like, but the Terms of Service [google.com] says:

- 18 years old or older;
- capable of entering into a legally binding agreement; and
- a resident of the United States.

So only people from the United States are allowed to use it yet :( And most supporting companies don't even ship outside the US.

All you need to know

[tomstdenis]

10. Disputes

GPC will provide various tools to assist Customers in communicating with each other to resolve a dispute that may arise between Buyers and Sellers with respect to their transaction. If Customers are unable to resolve a dispute, we can mediate disputes between buyers and sellers if either party requests assistance. If this occurs, we will review the dispute and propose a non-binding solution, if appropriate. For more detailed information, please see our Frequently Asked Questions.

GPC may offer a feedback or other ranking system on the Service to assist you in evaluating other Customers of the Service. You acknowledge that any such feedback or ranking system represents solely the opinion of other Customers of the Service, and is not an opinion, representation, or warranty by GPC with respect to other Customers of the Service.

You agree to release, GPC, Google, and other GPC affiliates, and their agents, contractors, officers and employees, from all claims, demands and damages (actual and consequential) arising out of or in any way connected with a dispute. You agree that you will not involve GPC in any litigation or other dispute arising out of or related to any transaction, agreement, or arrangement with any Seller, other Buyer, advertiser or other third party in connection with the Service. If you attempt to do so, (i) you shall pay all costs and attorneys' fees of GPC, Google, and other GPC affiliates and shall provide indemnification as set forth below, and (ii) the jurisdiction for any such litigation or dispute shall be limited as set forth below. However, nothing in this Terms of Service shall constitute a waiver of any rights, claims or defenses that you may have with respect to a Payment Transaction under the Buyer's card issuer agreement, the card association rules or applicable state and federal laws, such as the federal Truth in Lending Act or the Electronic Fund Transfer Act.

If you are a California resident, you hereby expressly waive California Civil Code 1542, which states: "A general release does not extend to claims which the creditor does not know or suspect to exist in his favor at the time of executing the release, which if not known by him must have materially affected his settlement with the debtor."

Re:All you need to know

[Dun Malg]

When's the last time you called a credit card processor to resolve a disputed charge? You deal with the card issuer. This is no different from any other card processor agreement. Get a grip.

Re:Not only that

[ZorinLynx]

I wonder why Google and Paypal don't want porn to be sold using their service.

Just think of the huge market they're abandoning; if porn sites could use paypal or google for payment, many more folks might be willing to to pay for porn since they won't be giving their credit card info to seedy companies!

But for some odd reason they forbid it. Strange...

-Z

Typo

[pr0nbot]

"The service allows you^H^H^H them to track all your orders and shipping in one place"

Regards,

The nation's #1 tinfoil hat supplier!

1,9% and $0,30 ?

[mochan_s]

The 1,9% and $0,30 rate for Paypal is if you recieve more than $100,000 to your account and you have a merchant account!

Normally, it's 2.9% + $0.30 USD. https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display -receiving-fees-outside [paypal.com]

Re:1,9% and $0,30 ?

[Drew-NC]

That is 100% correct. I run a small web store and we use PayPal to process orders. We are paying 2.9% + $.30 per transaction. I would love to switch to google, but I see one issue. With PayPal people can place orders on my site, pay with a credit card, and not have a PayPal account. PayPal just processes the card. When google will let my customers pay without having a google account I will switch.

Re:1,9% and $0,30 ?

[rjstanford]

At least Google accounts are easy to sign up for and manage. I have a PayPal account. I think it even has some money in it still (a few bucks). I have the hardest time getting any PayPal transactions to work - and I work in enterprise web development, so its not as if I'm a stranger to the system. I couldn't imagine forcing someone to sign up for a PP account, and I agree that a Google account is still too much of a requirement, but at least its a lot more reasonable.

Re:1,9% and $0,30 ?

[AK Marc]

When google will let my customers pay without having a google account I will switch.

I don't understand "switch." You make it sound like an either/or decision. Can't you offer both? "If you have a Google Checkout account, go here, if you don't, go to PayPal - Thanks and come again." That way, every time someone does use Google, you'll save .9% and when they don't, you'll see no difference. It will have two benefits - you'll save the .9% immediately, and you'll be encouraging people to find out about Go

Re:1,9% and $0,30 ?

[Drew-NC]

True but it will require a major re-write of my web site, the use of a separate shopping cart software, find a way to move money from google to PayPal (we use PayPal as a checking account too) and upgrading to PayPal Payments Pro at $20 a month. PayPal Payments Standard does not integrate with external shopping cart software, you use PayPal form code and they provide the shopping cart. I expect many small web stores are in the same boat I am in. I remember that not too long ago PayPal required customers

$10 chargeback risk for sellers.

[mwvdlee]

I was interested in this as a seller, but I'm somewhat wary of the $10 chargeback cost they charge the seller if a buyer either ask refund or is just defrauding you.
Typically this means that if a seller is the victim of fraud, (s)he loses the item sold AND has to pay $10 because of it.
Using this for "micro"-payments of, say, $5, would be pretty dangerous considering the risk of fraud.
I've been selling through another service for years now and thus have some indication of the amount of fraud happening on the internet. I may still try google CheckOut, but probably only for $10+ payments so valid orders may cover the risk of fraudulent ones.

Besides, the service is only available in the U.S.A. anyway, so I'd have to wait for it. Odd, considering AdWords and AdSense are available pretty much worldwide.

Sticking with Paypal...

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

I dig Google, man do I ever but I think I have reached my limit as to how tightly I integrate myself with Google, inc. Google IS a publicly traded company and it's only a matter of time before "Do no evil"(tm) becomes "We do less evil than everyone else" (tm). Why? Because Google is publicly traded and their only real obligation is to their stockholders. No matter of hipster-doofus-coolness culture trumps that. Just look at Apple...

They have transitioned themselved from being cool to being fairly evil (sweatshops for iPod manufacture, closing off the Darwin source)

Besides do you think for one second that eBay will make integrating auctions easy with Google? Of course not....

Paypal does suck but all of these services do and odds are Google's will too.

GPC Not A Banking Institution

[Ilgaz]

It says it is not a banking institution. So, it has lower rates and has "Google" in its name.

No other difference from Paypal?

It seems they use their brand value and lower rates against Paypal. Hope we won't have another Google Groups in hand since this thing is purely related to real life money.

On Google Groups, you can pollute usenet with any kind of criminal scams, pyramid schemes and they send "Google does not censor groups" type of "we don't care" message in politically correct way. Deja could handle abuse while usenet was really huge compared to today but as a billion dollar company they can't.

I hope they start working with Spamcop.net , Antiphishing.org and fraudwatchinternational.com right now. I hope they recorded all their URLs/IPs as interested parties and we (reporting users) don't see "ISP does not want to receive reports regarding" type of stuff at spamcop.net as first days of Paypal.

can you pay FRIENDS?

[linuxlover]

One thing we (at work) use paypal for is to pay each other. When we go out for lunch/drinks, one guy in the group picks up the tab for the whole group and he sends paypal requests to the rest of us. We just pay him with a click. So simple, no need to scramble for cash or trying to break a $20 bill (b/c every one has 20s) to pay $11.34 :-)

Does Google Checkout has this? I can't spot this from the 'take a tour' plug

This is a real nice feature and would really like to see it in GOOG version

Re:Huh?

[tiltowait]

I believe the comma in lieu of a period in a European thing. Kinda looks pretentious, but submitter has a .nl address. Not the best copy edit to use them interchangeably however.

My math says that Google would be cheaper for anything over $100.

Re:Huh?

[Silver Sloth]

Kinda looks pretentious,

It doesn't look pretentious if you're European, it looks normal. There is a world outside the evil empire! I will, however, agree that one shouldn't mix standards.

Re:huh?

[Bitsy Boffin]

Different parts of the world use different symbols for numeric representations, comma is used as a decimal separator in sme locales, I suspect that it is in The Netherlands, where apparently the submitter comes from. He probably just typed it in the second time out of habit, the rates for Google perhaps he copy and pasted, or specifically remembered he's talking to a predominatly American audience.