

Google Wallet for digital goods Retirement - alpha229
https://support.google.com/wallet/business/answer/6107573

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alpha229
I'd be curious to know what prompted this retirement. Having moved from Google
Checkout to Google Wallet, it's more than a little frustratingt. The Wallet
customer experience was pretty good and the integration process was fairly
simple. It's a shame to lose this and lose yet more faith in Google to keep
their services alive.

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TillE
They're only shutting down payment for digital goods, so I'm guessing it has
something to do with fraud and risk.

~~~
jordanthoms
Payment for digital goods is the only payment that's left from the Checkout
shutdown (other than Android).

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mikeevans
Instant Buy is for non-digital goods.

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jordanthoms
Instant Buy doesn't actually process payments, it gives you a virtual card and
then you need to use your own credit card processor.

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_Lemon_
Does anyone know of any replacements?

I get zero chargebacks via Google and struggle to find anything that's
comparable?

I've got the usual horror story behind PayPal (that cost a lot) and Stripe
does not have adequate anti-fraud.

At the moment Amazon Payments seems to be a worthwhile competitor (they
guarantee no chargebacks related to fraud) however their service is much
harder to integrate. Although plenty of humans in the mix which is a very nice
touch.

As a merchant, this is why Bitcoin is so valuable.

~~~
alpha229
Google was handy because their policies weren't overly restrictive - perhaps
this is what sunk the digital goods api... Stripe is wonderfully easy to set
up but doesn't allow integration for certain types of app e.g. telecoms (I
understand that this is because of retrictions banks have placed on them).

Trustworthy Bitcoin payment processors are tricky to find. The stripe approach
to this does give the lowest amount of customer friction imo (i.e. options to
convert usd to btc on the spot) but the market restrictions and the beta
status make it a non starter for now.

