
Google Checkout will be retired, transition to Google Wallet - dpick
http://googlecommerce.blogspot.com/
======
ChrisNorstrom
Google is making the same mistakes Microsoft made. Trying to enter into every
industry it can thinking it can use it's monopoly power to take over the
world. Reality: Doing 20 things mediocrely is not as profitable of doing 2
things very very well.

Result:

1) Constant experiments and dropped products (just like Microsoft).

2) Consumers no longer trust your services to stick around and no longer even
invest in your platforms (*see most of Microsoft's offerings).

3) The services you do have aren't the highest quality and your brand takes a
hit as being "giant mediocre corporation" like Microsoft instead of "high
quality company" like Apple.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

~~~
mtgx
Completely agree. I'm so disappointed in Google for having Checkout for
_years_ and not doing anything serious with it. I really wanted it to become a
serious alternative to Paypal. But it's like they never even tried.

And it turned out to be _huge_ mistake for them because they could've _really_
used Checkout accounts from day one of Android, to get people to pay for
Android apps. I still believe this has been one of the biggest obstacles on
Android, because you need Google Wallet (which is brand new service, I guess)
account to pay for apps, and obviously the vast majority of people didn't have
one, and didn't bother to make one either, and they'd rather look for the free
alternative of the app.

It's been getting a bit better since Android 4.0, since they are asking
everyone to make an account at the set-up, but they are still behind, and it
could've been much better early on if Checkout was popular.

~~~
ryguytilidie
As someone who used to recruit for Google, and watched the team recruit
THOUSANDS of developers only to discontinue product after product, wtf are
these guys all doing?

------
_Lemon_
Earlier today I received a phone call from a number in Mountain View CA. It
was Google letting me know in advance that Google Checkout was to be shut down
(and asking to keep the call quiet). This was, to say the least, very
surprising considering I have very little correspondence with Google Checkout
and was actually thinking there was a huge problem with my account. Thankfully
not but this is still bad news for myself and I presume the industry at large.

Google Checkout was _very_ good with their fraud protection to the point that
I did not have to think about it. In fact, over the years I have been growing
my business Google have been my rock---never a real issue with them.

PayPal was a similar story but it also seemed to attract the sort of customer
that would open a dispute at almost any issue (or just threaten it). You can
also count me in one of their horror stories that indirectly cost me £5k and
even got to the point where they just flat out refused refunds for my
customers who wanted them.

I have a Stripe and GoCardless account as well and I've been trying to make it
work but their fraud protection is just not up to scratch compared to Google
and PayPal, which is a real shame. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to see
enough data to get quite the same fraud protection. Stripe do look fun though.

Another perspective from a merchant: roll on Bitcoin. With exchanges offering
guaranteed payouts in another currency (for me, GBP) I take on zero risk by
accepting it and it solves so many problems. There's no wonder more and more
websites are starting to accept it.

~~~
thehodge
Someone suggested Bitcoin today, as a merchant, what would you recommend to
start accepting it? a third party service?

~~~
_Lemon_
Definitely a third party service. Then place the bumper sticker "No Bitcoins
on our servers" somewhere :)

I integrated MtGox and BitPay. Compared to Google Checkout (XML mania) and
PayPal (documentation drama) they take about 5 seconds to implement (test is
another thing entirely).

I went with MtGox in the end since it was cheaper. I was then happy to offer a
3% discount to make up for the fees users got stung with purchasing BTC.
However MtGox has a number of bugs that make it a show stopper for some
customers.

If you ask the right questions they will acknowledge the bugs and tell you
they are working on it and need plenty of time. I would probably not use MtGox
if I had known about the bugs prior to integrating.

~~~
sounds
Just wanted to public thank you for detailing your experience as a merchant,
setting up with MtGox and BitPay.

Just curious, would you give BitPay a second look?

Obligatory: I'm currently using MtGox and haven't really had the time to try
BitPay, but the MtGox legal issues could be a reason to need a second option.

~~~
_Lemon_
Yes I would, I'd probably jump back to them. I've just not had time to sit
down this year!

------
NLPsajeeth
Although Google Checkouts is shutting down, Google Wallet for Digital Goods
still lives on (<https://support.google.com/checkout/sell/answer/3080449>). It
offers pretty much the best pricing on the net (most favorable of 5% or 1.9% +
30c (USD) per transaction is automatically applied.) and works in way more
countries and currencies than Google Checkout ever did
(<https://developers.google.com/commerce/wallet/digital/faq>).

~~~
diminoten
I feel like no one actually read the submission. Google Checkout and Google
Wallet overlapped too much, and Wallet won out. If your website uses Checkout,
just replace it with Wallet, and move on with your life.

~~~
simonk
Wallet doesn't have payment processing except for items on Google Play.

------
kintamanimatt
I don't trust Google any longer. Google (usually) brings out fantastic
products only to neglect and abandon them like a bored toddler.

This wave of product discontinuations is making me extremely hesitant to use
anything new Google brings out. If Google brought out Gmail today I'd sign up
and explore what it's about, but I wouldn't ever give out the email address
for fear that it would be snatched back with no or little notice.

I'm not going to pretend to know Google's business better than they do, but to
me it appears as though they're really dropping the ball here and losing a lot
of credibility and trust.

~~~
Bockit
I wonder how we would have reacted if rather than spacing all these out, they
batched them up an did one big announcement with plans for all lines being
discontinued. Quick and clean sort of deal.

------
hnolable
Anyone have any idea if this effectively terminates any existing recurring
Google Checkout subscription payments (on November 20)? If so, that's kind of
a big deal. Cutting off merchants from their revenue stream is a great way to
get people really angry and could easily destroy a business.

~~~
dennisgorelik
My understanding is that merchants would need to ask their users to re-
subscribe through different payment provider. It seems very unlikely that
Google Checkout would allow any way of importing users' credit card
information.

After such treatment I'm very unlikely to use any future Google's payment
systems (such as Google Wallet).

=========

<https://support.google.com/checkout/sell/answer/3098725>

The ability to process recurring charges or subscriptions using the
subscription beta feature will be shut down on November 20th.

=========

~~~
hnolable
Wow, so it _is_ true, that's the confirmation I was looking for. Really hard
to believe. I knew if they did shut them off they would point to the fact it's
still "beta". The subscription feature has been labeled beta since it was
released in March 2009. This is sick.

~~~
dennisgorelik
I was confused about that "beta" part, because I didn't know that Google
Checkout Subscriptions was still in beta. Now it all comes together.

It looks like Google is exercising in Doublespeak. I received email from
Google Checkout today. After skimming headers I could not understand what they
wanted to say.

How do you like email's subject: "An update to Google Checkout"

"An update"!

Thanks to Hacker News it's getting all clear now.

Anyway here's full email:

=========

[Google Wallet]

Safe & Secure

An update to Google Checkout

Hello,

A key focus of Google Wallet is to simplify and improve the commerce
experience for merchants and shoppers. Just last week, we announced two
enhancements to the Google Wallet platform. The Instant Buy API enables
merchants to offer a fast buying experience to Google Wallet shoppers on their
Android apps and websites, while processing their own payments. In addition,
the new Wallet Objects API enables merchants to engage their customers with
loyalty, offers, and more.

As we continue to build the Wallet platform, we must focus our priorities.
That is why we are announcing today that we will retire Google Checkout. We
remain heavily invested in building a platform that enables merchants to meet
the demands of a multi-screen world where consumers shop in-store, at their
desk and on their mobile devices.

I sell goods or services using Google Checkout. What does this mean for me?

Merchants can continue to accept payments using Google Checkout until November
20, 2013. We have partnered with a few best-in-class companies to provide you
with discounted migration options, so you can continue to run your business
with as little disruption as possible.

[Braintree] provides everything merchants need to accept payments, and powers
many of the fastest-growing online and mobile businesses around the world.

[Shopify] offers a fully hosted online shopping cart so you can quickly and
easily accept payments with top payment providers.

[FreshBooks] is an easy to use online invoicing solution.

If you are a U.S. merchant that does have payment processing, you can apply
for Google Wallet Instant Buy, which offers a fast buying experience to Google
Wallet shoppers.

I am an Google Play Apps or digital goods merchant. What does this mean for
me?

Sellers of digital goods on Google (Google Play, Chrome Web Store, Offers
Marketplace and Google Wallet for digital goods) will automatically transition
to Google Wallet and will not be impacted. Learn more »

If you are a user of the above products, but use the Google Checkout APIs for
notifications or reporting, stay tuned. We will be announcing replacement APIs
shortly and recommend you stop using the Checkout APIs as soon as possible.

Learn more about integration types, the best migration solution for your
business and next steps on closing your Checkout account. What this means for
shoppers There are no changes. Shoppers can continue to use Google Wallet to
purchase goods wherever they see the "Buy with Google" button.

More details

• We will continue to process Checkout transactions until November 20, 2013.
The last date for refunds will be December 20, 2013.

• After November 20, 2013, all order reports and history will be available for
download.

• In order to help us disburse all funds to you and file your tax forms
properly, please verify that your Tax ID and business name match what is shown
on your income tax return.

• You will see slight changes to the Merchant Center as we go through this
process with you.

More help

To learn more about this change, we invite you to join us for our live webinar
on May 23, 2013, at 10AM PST. As always, feel free to contact us at any time.
We look forward to working with you as we explore new payment methods.

Sincerely, The Google Checkout Team

Google Wallet | Help Center | Call support © 2013 Google Inc. 1600
Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043

You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you
about important changes to your Google Checkout account.

=========

------
chromaton
This is a real shame. My business was one of the very first to integrate
Google Checkout into a website shopping cart after the general release. I did
a marathon coding session the first week it came out because I knew that it
would be worth some free publicity if I got it working.

All of our payments come through either Google Checkout or PayPal. And some
people really hate PayPal, so we will be looking for alternatives (Amazon
Payments springs to mind).

I could see the writing on the wall for Google Checkout a couple years back,
though. They failed to add any new features in recent times in order to try to
match PayPal. The reporting was weak. E-mail notifications didn't always work
right. Declined charges were a hassle. E-mail payment requests couldn't be
formatted and were too short. Those were my main complaints, I'm sure there
were many more problems faced by people who had different requirements.

Checkout had huge potential to integrate into Google's other services. For
example, it let Google see directly who the best and most reliable merchants
were. In fact, I believe you can still have Adwords show stars on your text ad
based upon Checkout customer feedback.

Another useful integration is with Analytics. They did attempt some
information sharing there. Tying Analytics directly to sales information is
fantastic, and I wish they had made them work together better.

------
thehodge
It's a real shame that Google Checkout never really was what was promised,
we've integrated it into our shop and we have more GoCardless payments than
Google Checkout, it was a horrible system to deal with and I won't miss it
when it goes (and if I ever get a response about the Stripe UK beta I'll be
swapping that quick sharpish)

We've had more declined transactions on Google Checkout than PayPal +
GoCardless put together.

~~~
michaelschade
(I work at Stripe.)

Sorry you haven't gotten one yet! I just sent an invite your way.

~~~
nahname
Is this for e-commerce? I just suspected you guys didn't seriously consider
e-commerce since you don't do pre-auth and settlement. It being illegal to
charge the customer before shipping in some countries and such.

~~~
nivloc
They do: [https://support.stripe.com/questions/can-i-authorize-a-
charg...](https://support.stripe.com/questions/can-i-authorize-a-charge-and-
then-wait-to-settle-it-later)

~~~
nahname
This is a very recent change, if I am not mistaken. Seven days is a very short
window.

------
jacquesm
Retiring a payment system is really the ultimate insult to those that invest
in your platforms.

Imagine the bank that you use for your business transactions, especially
recurring billing, to one day walk in and say: so sorry, you won't be able to
process your old payments any more, but here is a new and shiny service that
we think is better that you'll have to use from now on.

Never mind the integration overhead, possible loss of business, customer
service issues and all the other headaches that can come from a thing like
this.

I'm scared just to change bank accounts given how far those bits of
information have propagated, losing a billing platform is a nightmare for
businesses that rely on it.

Why would anyone switch to another service by the same provider that just
chose to shut you down or that chose to saddle you up with a bunch of overhead
on this years calendar?

Google partnering with braintree, shopify and freshbooks is the saving grace
here.

In payment systems only two things matter: fraud control and continuity.
Google excels at the first, drops the ball on the second.

------
Lost_BiomedE
I am surprised that they will no longer offer processing. The whole reason I
even used them was to prevent the need to deal with a payment processor (my
current store options for customers are google and paypal).

I checked out amazon's offer again and will likely add them as a replacement.
They have a lot of existing customers, the charge is reasonable, and I will be
able to integrate it in a fairly painless manner.

------
akandiah
I'm a bit uninformed about the capabilities of Google Wallet and Checkout.
Anyone care to elucidate the differences? Do they perform the same functions?

------
quackerhacker
I think the problem was Google's Api was very ill written compared to
Paypal's. This may be an old implementation, but I think the Api didn't allow
subscription services easily, and also notified it's sellers of an order
immediately (regardless if the transaction was successful or not).

Beside, I think Google is investing the proper resources in building Waller to
be a formidable product against Paypal, Amazon, and other 3rd Party checkouts.

Side Note: For the Google Checkout devs that read this, I'm sorry for what I
did (Michael Largent).

~~~
Finster
Shoddy API's are not unique to Checkout. Most, if not all, of Google's API's
are actually pretty terrible. When they DO update their API's it's pretty rare
that they tell anyone, and they never update their documentation. So, a
workflow that worked fine last week will suddenly fail disgracefully and
you'll have no idea unless you find the right version of the docs.

~~~
zbowling
maps has a great API.

------
codereflection
I figured this was going to happen when they announced Wallet, :/.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5714531>

~~~
contingencies
This is the real story. They're not shutting down at all, they're pivoting
their focus within payments to mobile/physical presence. Getting rid of 'card
not present' situations means cheaper and more reliable processing, and the
physical focus that goes with mobile payments gives additional reasons for
Android users to leave their credit card details with Google. Google's fastest
growth right now must be in Android-driven Google account signups. I can see
why they're focusing on that area, rather than some old, first financial world
only, pre-monopolized, credit card not present delayed payments reverse
charges web based fraud rule quagmire.

------
taigeair
Good thing I'm not using Google Checkout anymore. It's still a shame though. I
actually like it more than Paypal but having done some experiments with my
ecommerce businesses (e.g. <http://www.wellingtonstravel.com/>) I found people
trust the Paypal payment option more or are more familiar with it, leading to
more conversions. So that's why I went with Paypal over Google Checkout.

------
bifrost
Ugh, this is terrible. The one service I actually used with Google, and they
shut it down. In their defense, its been dead for a while, they made the UI
horrifying to use and a giant PITA. Glad I got my one last payment in.

Time to move to stripe.

~~~
droopyEyelids
Looks like Google partnered(?) with Braintree, Shopify and Freshbooks-- like
you can get a discount for transitioning. Considering how many people mention
just moving to Stripe on this thread, I wonder what sort of hoops those three
had to jump through to get their names on the page. Also I wonder what part of
the process led Google to choose those three over their competitors.

It seems like Stripe would have been a natural choice. Anyone know anything
about the vetting process and want to comment? It would be interesting if
there was a hangup or concern that led to the decision.

~~~
dangrossman
Stripe is only available in North America, and probably lacks the headcount to
handle thousands or more new merchants in a short time. Braintree's more than
twice as old, more than twice as big, and operates in US/UK/AU/CA/EU.
Recommending Stripe would mean sending many of Google Checkout's merchants
somewhere that can't help them. Google Checkout, like many third-party
processors, is heavily used by merchants outside the US where a traditional
merchant account is much more difficult to acquire and integrate.

~~~
simonk
Google Checkout was US/UK only.

------
jmgrosen
Wait, so what's the difference between this and Google Wallet?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Wait, so what's the difference between this and Google Wallet?

With Checkout, Google is a credit card processor.

With Wallet, Google isn't a credit card processor, they are partnered with
Bankcorp Bank who is issuing virtual cards which are funded either by
transferring funds from the users bank account or by charging credit cards.

------
pbreit
This is bizarre considering that the Gmail money thing just launched so Google
is remaining in the payment processing business (different from Play in that
Checkout and Google Gmail Money are much more accessible to recipients).

~~~
dragonwriter
> This is bizarre considering that the Gmail money thing just launched so
> Google is remaining in the payment processing business

The "Gmail money" thing is a Google Wallet feature, as Google Wallet doesn't
include credit card processing on the merchant side, I suspect that for things
where Google is, effectively, the "merchant" (like sending money through
Gmail), they are paying a third party for processing services.

------
aviraldg
Uh... calling it a "shutdown" isn't all that close to the truth. They're
transitioning from Checkout to Wallet.

~~~
nieve
It may be a transition for Checkout users, but it's a shutdown for merchants.

* Shutting down payment processing which was a pretty fundamental part of the offering

* they're requiring you to reapply to get an instant buy account

* They're killing off the APIs

It's not a transition if you lose a core feature, don't transition the
accounts in any meaningful way, and have to implement a new system - at that
point it's about like switching to PayPal (except you get to keep payment
processing if you switch).

------
dewiz
anyone taking bets... ehm willing to speculate on what big is next dying at
google? I'm thinking about google tv, or is that Q already gone? music? books?
I'm happy to see G staying on the marketing garden

~~~
petercooper
I'm going with FeedBurner. Although you could argue it's already 90% dead.

~~~
ComputerGuru
We're betting the same, and have put our money where our mouth is:
<http://feedsnap.com/>

~~~
stock_toaster
Go bold. Love it.

------
jpalomaki
At some point I thought the master plan behind Google Checkout was to tie the
adword payments to actual purchases behavior. So instead of paying per click
an advertisers could have paid "per purchase".

With enough sites on board Google would probably have been in quite good
position in trying to figure out if the user is really going to make the
purchase or not. If user is likely to purchase, then show him "pay per
purchase" ads otherwise just regular "pay per click".

------
jensenbox
If you are interested, I have been keeping score:
<http://jensenbox.github.io/timeline/>

------
braco_alva
Could this mean that could expand the number of countries that were supported
by checkout?

I really hope so, not being able to sell in the Play Store/Chrome Web Store is
something we've been looking for a while.

------
martindale
This title is inaccurate. Google Checkout is being upgraded to Google Wallet,
which provides the _exact_ same functionality with more features.

~~~
simonk
No, they are getting rid of the payment processing.

------
pbreit
I wonder if anyone besides Braintree will step in with a copy of Google's APIs
and try to win some easy business?

------
orangethirty
I reason google shoud bring labs from the dea, and use it to test the waters
with products like this.

------
Shorel
Amazon is still a viable alternative to PayPal.

I used it to buy the latest Humble Bundle.

------
fixxer
I just hope they don't toss Scholar. That thing is salvation.

------
eco
The post says they are transitioning over to Wallet in the very first
sentence. It's amazing how many people are commenting without even getting
that far into the link.

------
jmd_akbar
does anyone have any idea what happens to the google drive subscription, if
you're paying via google checkout?

